HOW TWO WENT IN AND THREE CAME OUT
“It iss better to sit here two, three days till he comse out than to go
in and get yourself killt, yes inteet!” was the burden of Evan Morgan’s
answer to all their arguments for a speedy assault. And “Iss, sure!” was
Trevna’s curt, complete endorsement.
But when, at John Drillot’s suggestion, they had squeezed under the slab
to have a look at what lay below, and had peered down the slit that Gard
tried first, and had then lighted on the tunnel, and had found the gun
and powder-flask jammed in a crevice--that put a different face on the
matter.
And, after prolonged discussion as to the proper method of procedure,
especially in the matter of precedence, it was at last arranged that
Evan Morgan should go first with his miner’s lamp, and that John Trevna
should follow close behind, carrying the gun.
“And iss it understood that I shoot him if I see him?” asked Trevna, to
make sure of his ground and make his conscience easy.
“Pardi, yes, mon gars! Shoot straight, and the Island will thank you,”
asserted John Drillot.
“Ant for Heaven’s sake, John Trevna, see you ton’t shoot me behint by
mistake,” urged Evan Morgan; and they disappeared slowly into the
tunnel, while the other two stood waiting expectantly in the well.
Accustomed as they were to narrow places, this long worm-hole of a
tunnel, with the doubtful possibilities that lay beyond it, seemed as
endless to the militant members of the expedition as it did to the
waiters outside.
Occasionally a hollow sound came booming down the tunnel, when one or
other grunted out a word of objurgation on the narrowness of things, but
for the most part they wormed along in silence, Morgan shifting forward
his lamp, foot by foot, and straining his eyes into the darkness ahead,
Trevna close behind with his gun at full cock and ready for instant
action.
“Gad’rabotin, but they take their time, those two!” said John Drillot,
impatiently, outside.
“It iss going right through to Wailee, I do think,” growled Evan Morgan
inside.
And it was just after that that there broke out in the depths of the
tunnel a commotion so extraordinary that the listeners outside could
make nothing at all of it, and could only lurch about in amazement and
climb up and push their heads into the tunnel, and wonder what it all
meant. Then, in the midst of the turmoil, there came the thunderous
bellow of the gun, and after a time a trickle of thin blue smoke floated
lazily out and hung about the well; and the men outside sniffed
appreciatively, and said, “Ch’est b’en!” and waited hopefully.
Evan Morgan, shifting forward his light, got an impression of something
in the narrow way in front, and suddenly he was taken with the biggest
fit of sneezing he had ever had in his life. He banged down the lamp
and threw up his head till it cracked against the roof, then banged his
chin against the floor, and finally propped himself, like a sick dog, on
his two front paws, and sneezed and sneezed and sneezed for dear life.
Then John Trevna began. He had the sense to lay down his gun, or Morgan
might have got the charge in his back. And so they sneezed in concert,
until their heads were clearer than they had been for many a day. And
the sound of it all to those outside was like the sound of mortal
combat.
Then Morgan, wiping his streaming eyes on the sleeve of his coat, in a
state of extreme exhaustion, caught sight of that which lay just beyond
him, and he saw that it was a man crawling down the tunnel to meet him.
“Shoot, John, shoot! He iss here,” he yelled, and laid himself flat to
give Trevna his chance.
And Trevna, between two sneezes, picked up his gun, though he could see
nothing to shoot at, and ran the barrel forward above Morgan’s head and
fired, and the roar of it in that confined space came near to deafening
them both.
The smoke hung thick and choked them, as they gasped it in in gulps
while they sneezed, and the light had gone out with the concussion.
They lay for a time exhausted. Then the atmosphere cleared somewhat, and
they lay in the thick darkness straining their ears for any sound, but
heard nothing.
“What did you see, Evan Morgan?” whispered Trevna at last.
“It wass a man.”
“Then I have killed him, for he does not move. Can you light the lamp?”
“I can not--in here. I am coing out. I haf hat enough of this.”
“We must take him out, too.”
“You can tek him, then, John Trevna. I haf hat enough of him and this
hole.”
“Don’t be a fool, Evan Morgan. If it wass a man, and he got that load in
him as close as that, he iss deader than Tom Hamon.”
“Well, you can go an’ see. I am coing out,” and he began to wriggle
backwards, and Trevna was fain to go too.
But presently they came to one of the somewhat wider places where the
wall had fallen away, and Trevna squeezed himself tightly into this.
“You go on, then, Evan Morgan,” he said, “if you can get past, and I
will go back and bring him out.”
“You are a fool, John Trevna, to meddle with him any more. Iff the man
iss dead, he iss just as well left there.”
“If he iss dead he cannot harm me, and I would like to see the man I
have killed.”
“Ugh!” grunted Morgan, and crawled on, legs first.
Trevna wormed along up the tunnel, groping cautiously in front of him at
each forward lurch, and at last his hands fell on what he sought, and at
the same moment he began sneezing again.
It would be no easy job dragging a dead man all down that tunnel, he
thought. But when, after cautious feeling here and there, he got a grip
of the man’s coat collar, to his surprise it came away in his hand, but
at the same time it seemed to him that the body was extraordinarily
light.
He tried again with a fresh grip on the coat, but it tore like paper,
and, after thinking it over, he unstrapped his leather belt and got it
round the man below the armpits, and so was able to haul him slowly
along.
When Evan Morgan’s wriggling legs came slowly out of the tunnel, John
Drillot and Peter Vaudin were almost dancing with excitement, and their
first surprise was the sight of him when, by rights, John Trevna should
have been the one to come out first.
“Well then? What have you done? And where is John Trevna?” cried John
Drillot.
“Ach! He iss a fool. He hass shot the man and now he will pring him out
when he woult pe much petter buried where he iss.”
“He’s quite right. What was all the noise about?”
“That wass the shooting.”
“Before that. You all seemed to be howling at once.”
“That wass the sneezing. It iss full of sneezing down there,” and his
red eyes still showed the effect of it.
It was a long time before they heard the laboured sounds of Trevna’s
coming. But at last his legs wriggled out, then his body, then with a
lurch he hauled up to the mouth of the tunnel that which he had brought
with him. And at sight of it they all started back against the sides of
the well, with various cries but equal amazement.
“O mon Gyu!” cried Peter Vaudin.
“Thousand devils!” cried John Drillot.
“Heavens an’ earth!” gasped Evan Morgan.
John Trevna gazed open-mouthed, for he had little breath left in him.
And from the black mouth of the tunnel the strange and terrible figure
of the dead man looked quietly down at them and filled them with
amazement.
Trevna’s heavy charge had blown in the top of the skull. The shrunken
yellow face wore the gaunt eager look of one who had died the slow death
of starvation. It seemed to be trying to get at them to bite and rend
them.
Peter Vaudin was the first to climb the wall behind him, but the rest
were close at his heels, and hustled him up through the crack under the
slab.
Peter struck down towards the landing-place the moment he had wriggled
through.
“Stop then, Peter,” called John Drillot, in a low insistent voice, lest
that dreadful thing below should hear him.
“Not me! I’ve had enough, John Drillot. That is not what we came for ...
and I had hold of its leg last night,” and he shivered at the
recollection, and the thought that it might have turned on him and
gripped him with its grisly hands.
“I don’t know what it is,” began John Drillot, “but--”
“It’s the man I shot inside there,” said Trevna.
“That man hass peen det a hundert years,” said Morgan.
“All the same, he was running about last night,” said Peter, “and I had
hold of his leg”--with another shiver.
“He’s dead enough now, anyway,” said Drillot.
“Eh b’en! leave him where he is, and let’s get away. I’ve heard say
there were ghosts on L’Etat, and now I know it. No good comes of
meddling with these things.”
“But we ought to take him with us.”
“Take him with us!” almost shrieked Peter. “And let him loose on Sark!
Why then?”
“Whatever he was last night, he’s dead enough now.... Will you help me
to get him up, John Trevna?”
“Iss, sure! He’s got my belt.”
“Not in my boat, John Drillot,” cried Peter. “Not in my boat. I’ve had
enough of him, pardi!” and he set off at speed for the boat.
“Don’t be a fool, Peter. You, Evan Morgan, run down and stop him going.
Come on, John Trevna,” and after peering cautiously down to make sure
the dead man had not moved, they dropped into the well again.
The shrivelled figure was very light, as Trevna had found. It was only
their repugnance at handling it that made their task a heavy one. One
above and one below, they managed at last to get it up above ground, and
then John Trevna slipped his belt to its middle, and carried it with one
hand down the slope to the boat.
There they found Evan Morgan holding the approach to the landing-place
against Peter, with a lump of rock, while Philip, in the boat below,
stood shouting at them to know what was the matter.
At sight of the others and their burden, however, he had no eyes for
anything else.
“What have you got there, John Drillot?”
“A dead man.”
“Aw, then! That’s not Gard.”
“It’s the only man here, anyway. Pull close up, Philip--”
“Not in my boat, John Drillot!” from Peter.
“We must take this to the Sénéchal,” said John angrily. “If you don’t
want to come you can wait here. If you don’t make less noise, I will
knock you on the head myself,” and he jumped down into the boat, and
took the dead man from Trevna, and laid him carefully in the bows. The
others jumped in, and Peter, sooner than be knocked on the head or left
behind, sulkily followed, and sat himself on the extreme edge of the
stern as far away from the dead man as he could get.