THE BLACK HOLE
Hours and hours had gone by, and Eleanor had lain quite still. Sometimes
she was conscious, but oftener she was not. The pain in her shoulder,
the exhaustion from the long waiting, had made her delirious. When the
rain began it seemed at first to refresh her, she was so hot and
feverish. Later rheumatic twinges began to dart through her injured
shoulder; her whole body was racked with pain. She seemed to be in some
horrible nightmare. She forgot what had happened to her. She no longer
realized that she was waiting for her friends to come to her rescue; she
only believed that, if she could in some way get back to her own home,
"Forest House," the agony and terror would cease.
In her delirium Eleanor managed to get up from the wet ground. She never
knew how or when, but she remembered groping her way cautiously through
the dark forest. The hundreds of trees seemed like a great army of
terrible men and women waving angry arms at the frightened girl. Now and
then she would bump into one of the trees. Eleanor would then step back
and apologize; she thought that she had collided with a human being.
At times Eleanor was dimly conscious that she could hear the sound of
her own voice. She was singing in high, sweet tones a song of her
babyhood:
"When the long day's work is over,
When the light begins to fade,
Watching, waiting in the gloaming,
Weary, faint and half afraid,
Then from out the deep'ning twilight,
Clear and sweet a voice shall come,
Softly through the silence falling--
Child, thy Father calls, 'Come home.'"
There was something in the familiar words that comforted Eleanor. She
would soon find her mother and father and Madge. But step by step
Eleanor went farther away from civilization and deeper into the woods.
At last she came out of the woods altogether to a more forbidding part
of the country. A group of small hills rose up at the edge of the
woodlands. They seemed to poor Eleanor's distorted imagination to be a
collection of strange houses.
A yawning hole gaped in the side of one of the hills. Years before a
company of promoters had believed that rich coal deposits could be
found in these Virginia hills. A coal mine had been dug in the side of
this solitary hillock. But the coal yield had not been rich enough.
Later on the company had abandoned it and the old coal mine was disused
and almost forgotten. A strange freak of destiny led Eleanor to the
spot.
She felt, rather than saw, the opening. The rain had ceased, but the
night was still dark. Eleanor believed that she had found the door of
her own home at "Forest House." Why was it so dark in the hall? Had no
one lighted the lamps? Surely, she heard some one cry out her name!
"Mother! Father!" she called. "Madge!" She put out one hand--the other
was useless--and stepped into the black hole. It was all so dark and
horrible. Eleanor took a few steps forward; a suffocating odor of coal
gas greeted her; she stumbled and fell face downward. Eleanor was
literally buried alive. She had wandered into a place that the world had
forgotten, and she was too ill to make any effort to save herself.
So it was that Eleanor Butler heard no sound and saw no sign of the
desperate search that was being made for her. But if Eleanor were
unconscious, there was some one else who knew that the woods and all the
nearby fields and countryside were being investigated, inch by inch, by
a party of determined seekers. The man believed that the search was
being made for him. For several days he had been in hiding on the edge
of the woods, not far from the old coal mine into which Eleanor had
stumbled. He had his own reasons for hiding, although he believed that
until to-night no crime had been fixed on him.
While Eleanor was groping her way out of the woods this man was crouched
in the branches of a heavily wooded tree. He had spent all his life in
the open, and knew that a party of men searching through a forest on a
dark night would not spy him out so long as the darkness covered him.
But he knew that at dawn he must find a better hiding place.
Just before daylight the woods were silent once more. The fugitive
understood that the searching parties had gone home to rest and to get
reinforcements in order to begin a more thorough hunt at dawn.
The greater part of the night the man had spent in trying to decide
where he should conceal himself before the daylight. He knew of but one
possible hiding place that was safe. He had tracked through the country
for miles to hide his treasures in the old coal mine, although he had
believed that he was absolutely free from suspicion. Who had betrayed
him? Not the old gypsy woman. The man did not consider her. But there
was--_the boy_!
As soon as the woods were free from the hunting parties the man slipped
down from his tree. It was a poor place of refuge, but he would crawl
into the disused coal mine, for the day at least, to guard his life and
his stolen property. He crept cautiously along. As soon as he could get
word to the gypsy woman they would both try to get away from the
neighborhood. Things were getting too hot for them both. And again,
there was _the boy_!
There was some one else afoot in the woods. The man could hear a
cat-like tread. Nearer stole the other prowler. There was another sound,
a faint call, which the man answered. An instant later the old gypsy
woman appeared. "I have been searching for you, lad. The boy says he has
got to see you."
It was hardly dawn, but a faint light had appeared in the sky that was
not daylight but its herald. A pause hung over the world that always
comes just before its awakening.
The man and woman hesitated just a moment at the opening of the old
mine. It was dreadful to shut themselves away from the daylight. The man
went in first, the old woman close behind him. But a few feet from the
entrance he staggered back; he had struck his foot against something.
The man's first thought was that some one had crept into the mine to
steal his treasure. A few seconds later he became more accustomed to the
dim light and saw the still figure of Eleanor.
The man and the woman stared at the girl as though they had seen an
apparition. She was so deathly pale it was not strange that they thought
at first that she was not alive.
Both the man and the woman kept close to the ground, so as not to inhale
the odor of the coal gas. The old gypsy took Eleanor's limp, white hand.
"She is alive," she whispered to the man.
The man nodded. He realized at once that the woods were being searched,
not for him, but for this lost girl. He could not imagine how the girl
had wandered into this dreadful place of concealment. But she was
certainly innocent of any wrong or suspicion of him. Yet, if she stayed
in the coal mine with them all day, she might die.
There has hardly ever been born into this world any human creature who
is wholly wicked. The man in the mine with Eleanor was not a cruel
fellow. He had one strange, wicked theory, that the world owed him a
living and he would rather steal than work for it.
Unexpectedly Eleanor opened her eyes. She did not cry out with terror.
She was no longer delirious. She smiled at the man and at the old woman
in a puzzled, friendly fashion. "It is so dark and dreadful in here!
Won't you take, me out?" she pleaded.
Fortunately Eleanor had fallen near enough to the entrance of the mine
to get the fresh air from the outside. She struggled to sit up, but the
pain in her shoulder again overcame her.
"How did you get in here?" the man asked Eleanor suspiciously.
"I don't know," she answered, beginning to cry gently. "Please take me
out."
The man realized that whatever was to be done for Eleanor must be done
at once. Every minute that passed made it the more dangerous for him to
return to the forest. Later on, when the woods were full of people, he
would not dare leave the mine. He knew that even now he was risking his
own freedom if he carried the girl out from the safe shelter that
concealed them.
The man lifted Eleanor in his arms as gently as he could. She cried out
when he first touched her; then she set her teeth and bore stoically the
pain of being moved.
"You can trust me," her rescuer said kindly. "I can't take you to your
friends, but I will take you to a place where they can find you. Now
you must promise me that you will never say that you have ever seen me
or the old woman, and that you will never mention the old coal mine."
Eleanor promised and the fugitive seemed impressed with her sincerity.
The man carried her about a quarter of a mile into the woods. Then he
laid her down in the grass and hurried away. Eleanor watched him with
grateful eyes. She did not wonder why the man and the old woman had come
to the mysterious hole in the earth, nor why they wished her to keep
their hiding place a secret; she was not troubled about it. She was
still in great pain, but her fever had gone and she was no longer
delirious. She remembered the events of the day before up to the time
when she started to wander in the woods. Now Eleanor waited, content and
full of faith. The day had come, with its wonderful promise. She knew
that she would soon be found. She would bear the pain as well as she
could until then.
"Nellie! Nellie!" It was Madge's voice calling to her from afar off. The
tones sounded queer and strained, but Eleanor felt sure they were those
of her cousin. She could not be mistaken, as she had been last night.
She must have been dreaming when some one seemed to summon her from the
mouth of the cave. Eleanor did not realize that she had but caught an
echo of some one crying to her through the heart of the forest.
Eleanor was weak and faint, but she summoned her strength. "Madge! here
I am!" she cried. Her voice was too feeble to carry far.
Neither Madge nor any of her companions caught the answering sound.
David Brewster, Jack Bolling, Phil and Lillian were with her. Harry
Sears had given out at daylight and had gone back to the Preston farm.
Again they were wandering away from the spot where Nellie waited so
patiently.
"Nellie! Nellie!" Madge called once more, her voice breaking.
Poor Eleanor realized that Madge's voice was farther off than it had
been when she first called.
Eleanor made an heroic effort. She raised herself to a sitting position.
"Madge! Phil! Oh, come to me!" she cried. Then Eleanor fainted.
It was a limp, white figure that Madge, running ahead of all the others,
found stretched out on the grass. Her companions soon caught up with
her.
"Nellie is dead!" cried Lillian, bursting into tears and sinking down
beside her friend on the grass.
"Oh, no," assured Phil, "Nellie has only fainted." She turned quietly
to David and Jack. "Go back, please, and tell Mr. Preston and some of
the other men to bring a cot on which to carry Eleanor. She is only worn
out and exhausted with exposure and pain. She will be all right soon.
Don't look so heartbroken Madge."
Madge had not taken her eyes from her cousin's pale, haggard face. She
could not believe that she was really looking at Eleanor. Could this
poor, white, exhausted little creature be her Nellie? Why, it was only
the afternoon before when Madge had last seen Eleanor laughing and
talking to Harry Sears. And now----!
A few minutes later the men came with the cot and Eleanor was carried to
the Preston home. Everybody, except David, followed her in triumph.
For David Brewster did not go back home with the others; he wished to
find out about an old coal mine which he had been told was in this
vicinity. He did not, of course, dream of Eleanor's connection with the
place, but he had his own reasons for wishing to discover it.
An hour later the man and the old gypsy woman were startled by another
visitor. David crept into the opening in the side of the hill. When he
left, the man and woman in the mine had promised the lad to leave the
countryside as soon as possible. They had also agreed to return to
David the silver and the greater part of the money stolen from the
Preston house on the night of the corn roast. It remained for David to
see that the stolen goods were returned to the house without suspicion
falling on any one. David believed that he could save the evil-doers
from disgrace and detection. But how was he to save himself?