If ever miserable wretch prayed for the light of returning day that
wretch was Harry Vine. It seemed hours of agony, during which the water
hissed and surged all round him as if in search of the victim who had
escaped, before the faint light in the east began to give promise of the
morn.
Two or three times over he had noted a lantern far out toward the
distant harbour, but to all appearances the search had ceased for the
night, and he was too cold and mentally stunned to heed that now.
He had some idea of where he must be--some three miles from the little
harbour, but he could not be sure, and the curve outward of the land hid
the distant light.
Once or twice he must have slept and dreamed in a fevered way, for he
started into wakefulness with a cry of horror, to sit chilled and
helpless for the rest of the night, trying to think out his future, but
in a confused, dreamy way that left him where he had started at the
first.
As day broke he knew exactly where he was, recollecting the rock as one
to which he had before now rowed with one of the fishermen, the deep
chasms at its base being a favourite resort of conger. Hard by were the
two zorns to which they had made the excursion that day, and searched
for specimens for his father's hobby--that day when he had overbalanced
himself and fallen in.
Those zorns! either of those caves would form a hiding-place.
"That is certain to be seen," he said bitterly; and with the feeling
upon him that even then some glass might be directed toward the isolated
rock on which he sat, a hundred yards from the cliff, in a part where
the shore was never bared even at the lowest tides, he began to lower
himself into the deep water to swim ashore and climb up the face of the
cliff in search of some hiding-place.
He was bitterly cold and longing for the sunshine, so that he might gain
a little warmth for his chilled limbs; and under the circumstances it
seemed in his half-dried condition painful in the extreme to plunge into
the water again.
Half in he held on by the side of the barnacle-covered rock, and scanned
the face of the cliff, nearly perpendicular facing there, and seeming to
offer poor foothold unless he were daring in the extreme.
He was too weak and weary to attempt it, and he turned his eyes to the
right with no better success.
"Better give up," he said bitterly. "I couldn't do it now."
As he gazed to his left the rock, however, seemed more practicable.
There was a chasm there, up which it would certainly be possible to
climb, and, feeling more hopeful, he was about to make the attempt, when
a flush of excitement ran through him. There in full view, not fifty
yards to the left, was the zigzag water-way up which they had sent the
boat that day toward the narrow hole at the foot of the cliff, the
little entrance to the cavern into which he had swum, and there sat for
his own amusement, startling the occupants of the boat.
"The very place!" he thought. "No one would find me there."
His heart began to throb, and a warm glow seemed to run through his
chilled limbs as, carefully picking his time, he swam amongst the waving
seaweed to the narrow channel, and then in and out, as he had gone on
that bright sunny day which seemed to him now as if it was far away in
the past, when he was a careless, thoughtless boy, before he had become
a wretched, hunted man.
The sun, little by little, rose above the sea and flooded the face of
the rocks; the black water became amethystine and golden, and the
mysterious gasping and moaning sounds of the current were once more the
playful splashings of the waves as they leaped up the empurpled rocks
and fell in glittering cascades. It was morning, glorious morning once
again, and the black, frowning cliffs of the terrible night were now
hope-inspiring in their hanging wreaths of clustering ivy and golden
stars.
The swell bore him on, and he rode easily to the mouth of the cave, a
low rift now that was nearly hidden when a wave ran up, and when it
retired not more than a yard high. And, as he recalled the day when he
swam in, his hopes rose higher, for even if careful search were made it
was not likely that any one would venture into such a place as that.
Then, as he held on by a piece of rock at the mouth, he hesitated, for
strange whispering sounds and solemn gurgling came out as he peered in.
Where he clung, with his shoulders above the water, all was now bright
sunshine: beneath that rough arch all was weird and dark, and it was not
until he had felt how possible it was that he might be seen that he gave
a frightened glance in the direction of the harbour, and then, drawing a
long breath, waited for the coming of a wave, lowering himself down at
the right moment, and allowing the water to bear him in.
He must have glided in, riding, as it were, on that wave some twenty or
thirty yards, when, after a hissing, splashing, and hollow echoing
noise, as a heavy breath of pent-up air, like the expiration of some
creature struck upon his face, he felt that he was being drawn back.
The rugged sides of the place, after his hands had glided over the
clinging sea-anemones for a few moments, gave him a firm hold, and as
the wave passed out he found bottom beneath his feet, and waded on in
the darkness with a faint shadow thrown by the light at the mouth before
him.
The place opened out right and left, and as his eyes grew more used to
the gloom he found himself in a rugged chamber rising many feet above
his head and continuing in a narrow rift right on into the darkness.
Where he stood the water was about three feet deep, and his feet rested
on soft sand, while, as he continually groped along sidewise, he found
the water shallowed. Then another wave rushed in, darkening the place
slightly, and it seemed to pass him, and to go on and on into the depths
of the narrow rift onward, and return. The tide he knew was falling, so
that some hours must elapse before there was any clanger of his being
shut in and deprived of air, while there was the possibility of the
cavern being secure in that respect, and remaining always sufficiently
open for him to breathe. But there were other dangers. There might be
enough air, but too much water, and at the next tide he might be shut in
and drowned. Then there was starvation staring him in the face. But on
the other side there was a balance to counteract all this; he had found
sanctuary, and as long as he liked to make this place his refuge he felt
that he would be safe.
The waves came and went, always pursuing their way along a rift-like
channel inward, while he cautiously groped his way along to the left
into the darkness, with the water shallowing, and his hands as he went
on, bent nearly double, splashing in the water or feeling the rough,
rocky wall, which at times he could not reach, on account of the masses
projecting at the foot.
The place was evidently fairly spacious, and minute by minute, as more
of the outer sunshine penetrated, and his eyes grew accustomed to the
place, it became filled with a dim greenish light, just sufficient to
show him the dripping roof about ten feet above him, while all below was
black.
All at once, as he waded in with the water now to his knees, his hands
touched something wet, cold, and yielding, and he started back in
horror, with the splashing noise he made echoing strangely from the
roof.
For the moment his imagination conjured up the form of some hideous
sea-monster, which must make the zorn its home, but once more sense and
experience of the coast told him that the creature he had touched must
be a seal, and that the animal, probably more frightened than he was
himself, had escaped now out into the open water.
A couple of yards farther and he was on dry sand, while, on feeling
about, he found that the side of the cave had been reached, and that he
could climb up over piled-up rocks heaped with sand till he could touch
the roof.
For some few minutes, as he stood there with the water streaming from
him, he could not make out whether the heaped-up sand which filled in
the rifts among the rocks was thoroughly dry or only lately left by the
tide, but at last, feeling convinced that no water, save such as might
have dripped from the roof, could have touched it, he carefully explored
it with his hands till he found a suitable place, where he could sit
down and rest.
He was so near the roof that the sandy spot he selected seemed to be
more suitable for reclining than sitting, and, lying down, chilled to
the very marrow, he tried to think, but could only get his thoughts to
dwell upon the rushing in of the waves as he watched them coming along
what seemed to be a broad beam of light, and go on and on past where he
lay right into a dimly-seen rift to his left.
He was cold, hungry, and wretched. A feeling of utter hopelessness and
despair seemed to rob him of the power to act and think. His wet
clothes hung to him, and it was not till he had lain there some time
that the thought occurred to him to try and wring out some of the water.
This he at last did, and then lay down to think once more.
He had not so much difficulty in making out the shape of the place now,
but it presented few differences from the many rifts in the rocks which
he had examined when boating. There were dimly-seen shell-fish on the
sides, scarce specimens such as would at one time have gladdened his
father's heart, just visible by the opening, which grew brighter and
brighter as the tide went down, and the entrance broadened till a new
dread assailed him, and that was that the place would be so easy of
access that he would be sought for and found.
The bitter, chilled sensation seemed to abate somewhat now, but he was
tortured by hunger and thirst. Every louder lap or splash of the waves
made him start and try to make out the shadow of a coming boat, but
these frights passed off, leaving him trying still to think of the
future and what he should do.
How beautiful the water seemed! That glistening band where the light
fell, and was cut on either side by a band of inky blackness, while the
light was thrown from the water in curious reflections on the glistening
rock, which seemed to be covered with a frosted metal of a dazzling
golden green.
He could think of that, and of the amethystine water which ran on
through what was evidently a deep channel, into the far depths of the
cave, along which, in imagination, he followed it on and on right into
the very bowels of the earth, a long, strange journey of curve and
zigzag, with the water ever rushing; and gurgling on, and the noise
growing fainter and fainter till it was just a whisper, then the merest
breath, and then utter darkness and utter silence.
The excitement and exhaustion of the past night were playing their part
now, and Harry Vine lay utterly unconscious of everything around.
Volume 3, Chapter III.