THE DROP OF WATER.
From fruitless genealogy he turned to the further consideration of his
supplies. He wanted water, and in a dungeon surrounded by lime-stone
walls and founded upon a rock, it seemed likely he would continue to
want it. But at the farthest corner, just where the roof approached
most closely to the floor, Hugh John could hear a _pat_, _pat_ at
regularly recurring intervals. He put his hand forward into the
darkness, and immediately a large drop of water fell on the back of
it. He set his tongue to it, and it tasted cool and good after the
fustiness of the woollen gag.
Hugh John thrust forward his hand again, palm upwards this time, and
was rewarded by finding that every time he counted ten slowly a large
drop, like those in the van of a thunder storm, splashed into the
hollow. It was tedious work, but then a dungeon is a slow place, and
he had plenty of time. He crawled forward to be nearer to the source
of supplies, and while trying to insinuate his head sideways
underneath like a dog at a spout, to catch the drop in his mouth
without the intervention of a warm hand, he felt that his knee was
wet. He had inadvertently placed it in a small natural basin into
which the drop had been falling for ages. Hugh John set his lips to
it, and never did even soda-water-and-milk, that nectar of the meagre
and uncritical gods of boyhood, taste sweeter or more refreshing.
After he had taken a good solid drink he cleaned the sand from the
bottom carefully, and there, ready to his hand, was a stone cup
hollowed out of a projecting piece of the rock on which the castle was
built. This well-anchored drinking-cup was shaped like the
pecten-shell of pilgrimage, and set with the broad fluted end towards
him.
Thus fortified with meat and drink, for he had devoured the first of
his rat-poison squares, or rather bolted it like a pill, General
Napoleon sat down to reckon up his resources. He found himself in
possession of some ten feet of fairly good cord, which had evidently
been used for bringing cattle to the fatal Black Sheds of butcher
Donnan. The prisoner carefully worked out all the knots, in order to
get as much length as possible. He did not, indeed, see how such a
thing could help him to escape, but that was not his business, for in
the authorities a rope was always conveyed into the cell of the pining
captive, generally in an enormous pie.
Hugh John felt that he was indeed a pining captive, but it was the pie
and not the rope he pined for. His dungeon was downstairs, and he did
not see how a rope could possibly help him to get out, unless there
was somebody at the top of the bottle ready to haul him up.
He tried his voice again, and made the castle ring in vain. Alas! only
the echoes came back, the pert jackdaws cried out insolently far above
him and mocked him in a clamorous crowd from the ruined gables.
Then his mind went off all of itself to the pleasant dining-room of
the house of Windy Standard, where Prissy and Sir Toady Lion would
even now be sitting down to tea. He could smell the nice refreshing
bouquet of the hot china pot as Janet Sheepshanks poured the tea into
the cups in a golden brown jet, and then "doused" in the cream with a
liberal hand.
"I declare I could drink up the whole tea-pot full without ever
stopping," said Hugh John aloud, and then started at the sound of his
own voice.
He waited as long as possible, and then ate the second of his squares
of bread. Then he drank the mouthful of water which had gathered in
the stone shell. While he was in there underneath the dungeon eaves,
he put out his hand to feel how far off the wall was. He expected
easily to reach it, but in this he failed entirely. His hand was
merely stretched out into space, while the drop fell upon his head,
and then upon his neck, as he leaned farther and farther over in his
efforts to find a boundary wall.
He had noticed from the first that the floor immediately beneath the
cup was quite dry all round, but it had not occurred to him before
that if the drop fell constantly and regularly the basin must overflow
in some direction. Hugh John was not logical. It is true that he liked
finding out things by his five senses, but then that is a very
different affair. Sammy Carter tried to argue with him sometimes, and
make matters clear to him by pure reason. The first time Hugh John
usually told him to "shut it." The second he simply hammered the
logician.
Finally, to solve the mystery, Hugh John crawled completely over his
drinking fountain and kneeled in the damp sand at the back of the
basin. Still he could discover no wall. Next, he put his hand forward
as far as it would reach out, and--he _could feel no floor_.
Very gingerly he put his foot over the edge, and at once found himself
on the top step of a steep, narrow, and exceedingly uneven stair. The
explorer's heart beat fast within him. He knew what it was now that he
had found--a secret passage, perhaps ending in an enchanted cave;
perhaps (who knew) in a pirate's den. He thought of Nipper Donnan's
last words about the beast as big as a calf which his father had seen
going down into the dungeon. It was a lie, of course; it must be,
because Nipper Donnan said it; but still it was certainly very dark
and dismal down there.
Hugh John listened with his ear pointed down the stair, and his mouth
open. He certainly did hear a low, rushing, hissing sound, which might
be the Edam water surrounding the old tower, or--the breathing of the
Black Beast.
If Hugh John had had even Toady Lion with him, he would have felt no
fears; but to be alone in silence and darkness is fitted to shake
stronger nerves than those of a twelve-year-old boy. It was getting
late, as he knew by the craving ache in his stomach, and also by the
gradual dusking of the hole twelve feet above his head, through whose
narrow throat he had been let down in the forenoon.
* * * * *
Now at first the Smoutchy boys had not meant to leave Hugh John in the
dungeon all night, but only to give him a thorough fright for his
hardihood in daring to attack their citadel. But Nipper Donnan's
natural resolution was ever towards cruelty of all sorts, and it was
turned to adamant upon discovering that Donald, the captured hostage
and original cause of conflict, had in some mysterious way escaped.
This unexpected success of the attacking party he attributed, of
course, to Hugh John, whom, in spite of his youth, he well knew to be
the leading spirit. Sir Toady Lion was never so much as suspected--a
fact which would have pleased that doughty warrior but little had he
known it.
In the afternoon Nipper had gone to Halkirk Tryst to bring home two
bullocks, which Butcher Donnan had bought there the day before; but
his father becoming involved in some critical cattle-dealing
transaction, for which he was unable to obtain satisfaction in cash,
resolved that Nipper should wait till the next day, when he hoped to
be able to accompany him home in person. So engrossed was Nipper with
the freaks of the fair, the Aunt-Sallies, the shooting-galleries, and
miscellaneous side-shows and ghost illusions, that he quite forgot all
about our hero immured in the dungeon of the Castle of Windy Standard.
Even had he remembered, he would certainly have said to himself that
some of the other boys would be sure to go and let him out (for which
interference with his privileges he would assuredly punch their heads
to-morrow!)--and that in any case it served the beggar right.
Probably, however, his father (had Nipper thought fit to mention the
matter to him), would have taken quite a different view of the
situation; for the butcher, with all his detestation of the owner of
the Windy Standard estate, held Mr. Picton Smith in a wholesome awe
which almost amounted to reverence.
So it came about that none approached the castle all that afternoon;
for the boys of Nipper's band were afraid to venture upon the castle
island in the absence of their redoubtable chief, while the servants
of Windy Standard House sought for the vanished in quite other
directions, being led astray by the innocent assertions of Toady Lion,
who had last seen Hugh John defending himself gallantly against
overwhelming numbers in the corner of the field nearest to the town,
and at least half a mile as the crow flies from the castle on the
island.