The agony was excruciating. A burning bubbling seethed in my brain, as
though my skull were filled with molten metal. My mouth was parched, my
neck stiff, and my jaws were fixed when I opened my eyes and found
myself in a great chasm of cavernous darkness.
How long I had lain there I have no idea.
The thunder of rolling, roaring waters deafened me, and my lower limbs
were so benumbed that at first I was unable to move them. I felt my
leg, and then discovered the reason. Wet to the skin, I was lying half
in water, my head alone being on some slightly higher ground--a
fortunate circumstance that had certainly saved me from being drowned.
Where was I?
For fully ten minutes--minutes that seemed hours, I was utterly unable
to move, but presently I managed, by dint of supreme effort, to struggle
to my feet and grope about me unsteadily, at last finding a smooth
arched wall. I lifted my hand above my head and found that I could
touch the roof.
In that pitch darkness, with the roaring torrent at my side, I dare not
move two paces lest I might lose my foothold.
I felt frantically in my pocket, and my heart leapt when I found that I
still possessed a box of wax vestas. The silver box was water-tight.
One of these I struck quickly, but its light was lost in that cavernous
blackness.
It only showed me the bricked walls, high to the roof, wet and slimy,
and revealed to me that I was in one of the main sewers of London! At
my side the great black torrent flowed on towards the outfall with
deafening roar in that long, interminable tunnel beneath the Metropolis.
Rats, hundreds of them, grey and scuttling, ran helter-skelter on seeing
the fickle light; but I stood motionless leaning against the wall and
gazing around at my weird surroundings until the match went out. My
head reeled, I feared to walk lest I should stagger into the Stygian
stream.
Knowledge of where I was gave me courage, however. My head was very
painful with strange fancies dancing through my imagination. I think
that the blow had unbalanced my brain.
Which way should I turn? To right or left? Was mortal man ever in such
a predicament? I recognised the truth. I remembered one appalling
fact. The scoundrels had sent me through into that deadly place,
knowing that even if the fall did not kill me outright, I must be
drowned when, at regular intervals, the sewer was automatically flushed,
and my body washed out to the Thames estuary.
I had seen the walls still wet to the roof from the last flushing, and
as I recognised my awful peril, my blood ran cold. At any moment might
come that gigantic flood to sweep me away into eternity in an instant.
Somewhere, higher up, was that mechanism which at certain hours of day
and night automatically let loose the great sweeping wave through the
long, black tunnel sweeping to the sea, the cleansing of London.
My only hope was to find safety somewhere, therefore in frantic haste,
all forgetful of the pain I was suffering, I turned to the right and
groped along the wall by aid of a match, the light of which was not
sufficient to show the true dimensions of the sewer.
On, on, I went, how far I have no idea. It seemed to be miles. My
matches burned only dimly, so bad was the air. Time after time I came
to side channels, small arches belching forth their black stream into
the roaring torrent like tributaries of a river, until I suddenly saw
something white upon the wall, and, raising my match, discerned the
painted words: "Poland Street."
Then I knew that I was beneath Poland Street, close to Oxford Street.
I was in search of a manhole by which to ascend to the roadway, but,
alas! could not discover one. A great terror seized me lest the flush
should come before I could gain a place of safety.
I was in the act of striking another match, in order to proceed more
quickly, when I felt my head reeling, and in clutching at the wall for
support the matchbox fell from my nerveless fingers into the water.
My disaster was thus complete. Without light how could I find a place
in which to raise myself above the level of the flood?
My heart stood still. In that moment the recollection of all the
sequence of strange and startling events of the past few weeks passed in
rapid review before me. My enemies had entrapped me, and I now knew
that I was doomed.
Eric's shout of defiance, followed by that groan and shriek, still rang
in my ears, but, most tantalising of all, I had no idea where the house
to which I had been enticed was situated. It was somewhere off Regent
Street, but further than that I had no knowledge.
I saw how cleverly the whole affair had been arranged; how the man
introduced to me as Humphreys had met us by appointment in the vestibule
of the Empire, and how, knowing my interest in antiques, the bait had
been so cleverly placed.
I had now no doubt that Ellice Winsloe was an adventurer, therefore my
eager desire was to reveal to Scarcliff the astounding truth.
And yet this was actually the man who had the audacity to propose
marriage to Sybil, and she had contemplated accepting him!
To old Lady Scarcliff the fellow had posed as a gentleman of means, and
had so ingratiated himself with Jack that the pair had become
inseparable. The situation was monstrous.
In sheer desperation I groped forward slowly and carefully, my face to
the black, slimy wall, feeling it forward with my hands. If I stumbled
the force of the torrent would, I knew, take me off my feet and I should
most probably meet with an awful death. Cautiously I crept along, how
far I cannot tell. Each moment seemed an hour, and each step a mile,
until of a sudden the wall ended!
Only the black swiftly-flowing flood lay before me. I put out my hand
in the darkness, but only grasped the air.
Next moment, however, I discovered that the sewer took a sudden turn,
almost at right angles, and that I had come to the corner. Yes. The
wall continued! So I groped on and on, my hands travelling over bricks
worn smooth by the action of the cleansing flood.
I hoped to encounter one of those men whom I had often seen descend from
the street in high boots and carrying a miner's lamp, but I was, alas!
alone. The very absence of the workmen told me the terrible truth. It
was the time for the automatic flushing!
On I groped in frantic haste, the rats scuttling from my path, the
darkness complete; the noise of the black waters deafening. I
recollected that as we had driven from the Empire it had commenced to
rain, and thus was the torrent accounted for.
Of a sudden, I discerned before me something. What it was I could not
distinguish. I crept on, and saw that it was like a small patch of
faint grey. Then, approaching nearer, I found that it was a single ray
of faint daylight which, penetrating from far above, fell upon the black
waters. It was day. I had been in that gruesome place all night.
My heart leapt within me as I went forward to it, finding that above was
a round, well-like shaft, which led to the surface, while in the wall
were iron footholds.
I gained the bottom, and grasping the small, rusted iron rails commenced
a slow and difficult ascent.
Not an instant too soon, however, for ere I had placed my foot upon the
first rung of the ladder a noise like thunder sounded from the tunnel,
and the black waters rose angrily to meet me, washing about my legs as I
climbed higher up, and filling the sewer to its roof.
For a few moments the water remained at that level, and then the torrent
slowly receded to its original height as the flushing wave rushed on
towards the outfall.
A cold perspiration broke out upon me. I saw how I had been within an
ace of death, and shuddered as I glanced below.
Then, ascending as quickly as my shattered nerves and swimming head
would allow, I found above me a closed grating, through which I could
hear the roar of the London traffic above.