_In Which I Understand the Feelings of a Ghost!_
So, I surmised, I had been underground a whole day and two nights, and
this was the morning of the second day after Calypso's disappearance.
What had been happening to her all this time! My flesh crept at the
thought, and, with that daylight stealing in like a living presence, and
the sound and breath of the sea, my anguish returned a hundredfold. It
was like coming to, after an anæsthetic, for I realised that, actively
as I had been occupied in trying to escape, I had been, all the time,
under a curious numbing spell. Just as my ears had seemed muffled with a
silence that was more than the stillest silence above ground; silence
that was itself a captive, airless and gasping, so to say, with the
awful pressure of all that oblivious earth above and around; a silence
that made me realise with a dreadful reality what had been a mere phrase
before, "the silence of the grave"; silence literally buried alive, with
eyes fixed in a trance of horror; just in the same way, all my feelings
of mind and heart, memory and emotion, had likewise been deadened, as
with some heavy narcotic of indifference, so that I felt and yet did
not feel--remembered and yet did not remember.
The events of a few hours before, and the dearly loved friends taking
part in them, seemed infinitely remote, for all their clearness, as when
we see a figure waving to us from a distance, and know that it is
calling to us, but yet we cannot hear a word. Even so one lies back in
the grip of a deadly sickness, and all that formerly had been so
important and moving seems like a picture, definite yet remote, in which
one has no part any more.
I think one would die soon and easily underground, as creatures in a
vacuum, for the will to live has so little to nourish itself on. One's
whole nature falls into a catalepsy; all one's faculties seem asleep,
save the animal impulse to escape--an impulse that would soon grow weary
too. So, it seemed to me, as I saw a little light and drew the breath of
the living world once more, that even my love for Calypso had, so to
say, been in a state of suspended animation during an entombment which
was heavy with the poppy of the grave, and made me understand why the
dead forget us so soon.
But now, as I stood on the little rocky platform outside the door
through which I had burned my way, and looked down into the glimmering
chasm beneath, and heard the fresh voice of the sea huskily rumbling and
reverberating about hidden grottoes and channels, all that Calypso was
to me came back with the keenness of a sword through my heart. Ah! there
was my treasure--as I had known when my eyes first beheld her--compared
with which that gold and silver in there, whose gleam had made me
momentarily distraught, was but so much dust and ashes. Ardently as I
had sought it, what was it compared to one glance of her eyes? What if,
in the same hour, I had lost my true treasure, and found the false? At
the thought, that glittering heap became abhorrent to me, and, without
looking back, I sought for some way by which I could descend.
As my eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, I saw that there were some
shallow steps cut diagonally in the rock, and down these I had soon made
my way, to find myself in a roomy corridor, so much like that in which I
had seen Calypso standing in the moonlight, that, for a moment, I
dreamed it was the same, and started to run down it, thinking, indeed,
that my troubles were over--that in another moment I would emerge
through that enchanted door and face the sea. The more so, as the sand
was wet under my feet, showing that the tide had but recently left it.
But alas! instead of a broad shining doorway, and open arms of freedom
widespread for me to leap into, I came at last to a mere long narrow
slit--through which I could gaze as a man gazes through a prison window
at the sky.
The entrance had once been wide and free, but a mass of rock had fallen
from above and blocked it up, leaving only a long crack through which
the tides passed to and fro.
I was still in my trap; it seemed more terrible than ever, now that I
could see freedom so close and shining, her very robe rustling within a
few feet of me, her very voice calling to me, singing the morning song
of the sea. But in the caverns behind me, I heard another mocking song,
and I felt a cold breath on my cheek, for Death stood by my side a-grin.
"The treasure!" he whispered, "I need you to guard that. The treasure
you have risked all to win--the treasure for which you have lost--your
treasure! You cannot escape. Go back and count your gold. 'It is all
good money'! Ha! ha! 'it is all good money'!"
The illusion seemed so real to me that I cried aloud: "I will not die! I
will not die!"--cried it so loud, that any one in a passing boat might
have heard me, and shuddered, wondering what poor ghost it was wailing
among the rocks.
But the fright had done me good, and I nerved myself for another effort.
I examined the long crevice through which the sea was glittering so
near. It was not so narrow as at first it had seemed, and I reckoned
that it was some twenty feet through. On my side, it was a little over a
foot across. Wouldn't it be possible to wedge myself through? I tried it
at the opening, and found, that, with my arms extended sidewise, it was
comparatively easy to enter it, though it was something of a tight fit.
If it only kept the same width all through, I ought to be able to manage
it, inch by inch, if it took all day. But, did it? On the contrary, it
seemed to me that it narrowed slightly toward the middle, and--judging
by the way the light fell on the other side--that it widened out again
farther on.
If only I could wriggle past that contraction in the middle, I should be
safe. And if I stuck fast midway! But the more I measured the width with
my eye, the less the narrowing seemed to be. To be so slightly
perceptible, it could hardly be enough to make much difference. Caution
whispered that it might be enough to make the difference between life
and death. But already my choice of those two august alternatives was
so limited as hardly to be called a choice. On the one hand, I could
worm my way back through the caves and tunnels through which I had
passed, and try my luck again at the other end.
"With half-a-dozen matches!" sneered a voice that sounded like
Tobias's--"Precisely" ... and the horror of it was more than I dared
face again any way. So there was nothing for it but this aperture,
hardly wider than one of those deep stone slits that stood for windows
in a Norman castle. It was my last chance, and I meant to take it like a
man.
I stood for a moment nerving myself and taking deep breaths, as though I
expected to take but few more. Then, my left arm extended, I entered
sidewise, and began to edge myself along. It was easy enough for a yard
or two, after which it was plain that it was beginning to narrow. Very
slightly indeed, but still a little. However, I could still go on,
and--I could still go back. I went on--more slowly it is true, yet still
I progressed. But the rock was perceptibly closer to me. I had to
struggle harder. It was beginning to hug me--very gently--but it was
beginning.
I paused to take breath. I could not turn my head to look back, but I
judged that I had come over a third of the way. I was coming up to the
waist that I had feared, but I could still go on--very slowly, scarce
more than an inch at every effort; yet every inch counted, and I had
lots of time. My feet and head were free--which was the main thing.
Another good push or two, and I should be at the waist--should know my
fate.
I gave the good push or two, and suddenly the arms of the rock were
around me. Tight and close, this time, they hugged me. They held me
fast, like a rude lover, and would not let me go. My knees and feet were
fast, and the walls on each side pressed my cheeks. My head too was
fast. I could not move an inch forward--and it was too late to go back!
Panic swept over me. I felt that my hair must be turning white.
Presently I ceased to struggle. But the rocks held me in their giant
embrace. There was no need for me to do anything. I could go on resting
there--it was very comfortable--till--
And then I felt something touching my feet, running away and then
touching them again. O God! It was the incoming tide! It would--And then
I prepared myself to die. I suppose I was lightheaded, with the strain
and the lack of food, for, after the first panic, I found myself
dreamily, almost luxuriously, making pictures of how brave men had died
in the past--brave women too. I fancied myself in one and another
situation. But the picture that persisted was that of the Conciergerie
during the French Revolution. I was a noble, talking gaily to beautiful
ladies also under the shadow of death, and, right in the middle of a
jest, a gloomy fellow had just come in--to lead me to the guillotine.
The door was opening, and I kissed my hand in farewell--
Then the picture vanished, as I felt the swish of the tide round my
ankles. It would soon be up to my knees--
It _was_ up to my knees--it was creeping past them--and it was making
that hollow song in the caves behind me that had seemed so kind to me
that very morning, the song it had made to Calypso ... that far-off
night under the moon.
I turned my eyes over the sea--I could move _them,_ at all events; how
gloriously it was shining out there! And here was I, helpless, with arms
extended, as one crucified. I closed my eyes in anguish, and let my body
relax; perhaps I dozed, or perhaps I fainted--but, suddenly, what was
that that had aroused me, summoned me back to life? It seemed a short,
sharp sound--then another, and then another--surely it was the sound of
firing! I opened my eyes and looked out to sea, and then I gave a great
cry:
"Calypso! Calypso!" I cried. "Calypso!"--and it seemed as though a
giant's strength were in me--that I could rend the rocks apart. I made a
mighty effort, and, whether or not my relaxing had made a readjustment
of my position, I found that for some reason I could move forward again,
and, with one desperate wriggle, I had my head through the narrow space.
To wrench my shoulders and legs after it was comparatively easy, and, in
a moment, I was safe on the outer side, where, as I had surmised, the
aperture did widen out again. Within a few moments, I was on the edge of
the sea, had dived, and was swimming madly toward--
But let me tell what I had seen, as I hung there, so helpless, in that
crevice in the rocks.