WALLED IN.
To repeat a previous question.
Where now was Harry Glenville?
On feeling himself descending, after Brand let go of the rope to which
he was clinging, the young man, instinctively throwing out his arms,
was fortunate enough to grasp the branch of the tree through which his
falling form was crashing.
To this branch he clung, swinging a hundred feet above the ground.
Every moment he expected that the branch, which was a slender one, and
which he held near the extremity, would part. He could hear it crack,
every time he swung.
Above him, faintly revealed in the lurid light, he could meanwhile
see a larger and stronger branch, which he hoped he might, by a
sudden upward stretching of an arm, succeed in grasping. Still there
was danger that he might miss his grasp, when he would certainly be
precipitated upon the ground below.
Still considering whether or not to make the attempt, he suddenly
heard the cheery voice of Tom Turk:
"Hold on hard, lad, and I'll be up there to help ye, in the tyin' of a
square knot!"
"Make haste!" exclaimed Harry, "as I expect, every minute, that the
branch I hold will give way."
"Ay, ay. Keep up a good heart. My climbin' days ain't quite over yet!"
As he spoke, Turk commenced rapidly ascending the tree, running up
the trunk with the squirrel-like dexterity of a true sailor.
He had with him the end of the fallen rope, thrown over his shoulder.
In a short time, he was upon the brunch, just above the swinging form
of his friend.
The latter's weight had nearly parted the branch, strips of which were
already beginning to peel off.
"Make haste, Turk!" repeated the young man.
"Ay, ay, lad! here's the rope!" cried Turk, lowering to his friend the
end, to which he had fastened a bowline hitch; "jest slip that over
your head, and under one of your arms, and I'll have ye up in half a
minute."
Harry promptly complied, not a moment too soon, for with a crash, the
branch now gave way.
The young man would have gone with it, in spite of the bowline hitch,
which he had not yet been able to properly secure, but for his
throwing up both hands and grasping the rope.
Turk, who had taken a turn round the upper branch, was thus enabled to
draw him safely up.
In a few seconds both men were on the ground, about to move in the
direction of the base of the cliff to meet Mary and Brand, when they
beheld the forms of the natives, stealing along from their canoe.
"Ay, ay, now!" whispered Turk, "this is calamitous."
"We must save Mary at all hazards," exclaimed Harry, impulsively, as
he bounded forward.
"S--sh!" whispered Turk, "jest see there! They have got the poor gal
and that Brand already," pointing to the natives, lugging of their
prisoners.
Harry would have sprang onward unarmed as he was, to attack the two
savages, but for the cooler and more prudent Turk.
"Hold!" he whispered, grasping his friend's jacket, "can't do anything
in a hurry, which do you see, will salle all."
Even as he spoke, another party of savages were observed, approaching
them.
"Now, then, fur scuddin!" said Turk, "no use stayin' here to be
speared to death, which is a most uncomfortable way of dyin',
'specially when you are afterwards b'iled in a pot for the blueskins'
dinner."
He drew the young man along to a clump of bushes near the base of an
enormous tree.
"I've sighted this tree before," said he, "which I know is holler.
It's big enough to hold you and me. Afterwards we can see to the gal,
if there's any way to save her, whereas if we should try now, we'd
only be killed, which sartinly would be a poor way for keepin' the
lass."
Harry saw the sense of this remark at once. With the old seaman, he
crouched in the bushes.
"Well have to get into the tree, mole fashion," said Turk, "see'n' as
the hole leading to the inside of it, is scooped out underneath."
So saying he displaced some bushes, and bade his friend crawl into the
aperture thus revealed.
Harry did so, and was soon followed by Turk.
In the hollow tree, the two now glanced up, to see through an opening
in the trunk, broken half way off, the lurid gleam of the volcanic
fire.
"Here we are, moles as is moles!" exclaimed Turk.
Meanwhile the shouts of the savages, who, it was evident, had now
come upon the footprints of the two seamen on the ground, were heard
outside of the tree.
"They will of course discover us, after all!" said Harry, "and we will
have to die. Better to have fallen in defense of Mary."
Turk scratched his head. By the red gleam, shooting down into the
hollow, Harry could see a troubled expression upon the old seaman's
face.
"Ay, ay," he muttered, at length, "the Turks never was good at
strategic p'nts. I had a grandfather, who, to save himself from a mad
bull, throwed himself, in tryin' to leap over it, partly upon the
creatur's horns, which, penetratin' the seat of his breeches, held
him expended in that way until he was relieved by friends!"
The old tar had scarcely thus delivered himself, when, chancing to
glance down, he beheld the tattooed face of a savage, thrust under the
trunk of the tree, peering up at him.
Before he could utter a word, however, the face was withdrawn.
Next moment a sound, as of men busy at work piling something around
the tree, was heard.
Soon after all was still.
The two men held a consultation. Doubtless the savages were somewhere
not far off, waiting for them to emerge.
Nevertheless, they determined to make an attempt to escape from their
present retreat.
Turk was the first to stoop for the purpose of passing out, when an
exclamation broke from his lips.
"What's the matter?" inquired Harry.
"Matter enough!" was the reply; "we are walled in with arth so that we
can't get out!"