ABANDONING THE FORT.
Having rescued their gallant Patrick Henry, the Seven defenders of the
cave held a council of war.
“It’s plain as day,” Mark laughed, “that they can never get in here at
us. There’s room for only one man at a time through that opening, and
it’s only another case of Horatius at the bridge.”
“Hang it!” growled Texas. “Ain’t we goin’ to have any fun, then?
Doggone their boots, I say we go out an’ wallop ’em.”
“Yea, by Zeus!” echoed the Parson, who was striding furiously up and
down the cave, thirsting for gore and incidentally rubbing his sore
head. “Yea, by Zeus! For I feel that I could go forth against the
Philistines like Samson of yore, and slay thirty thousand of them――――”
“With the jawbone of a counterfeiter” chuckled Dewey, “b’gee!”
“It is sad to think,” Mark went on, after the laugh was over, “that
those yearlings will get in here finally.”
“How’s that?” roared Texas.
“We can’t be here to guard it all day and all night,” answered Mark.
“They are bound to get in some day.”
He was silent for a moment, lost in thought.
And then suddenly he gave an exclamation of delight.
“By jingo!” he cried, “I have it!”
“What?”
“We’ll let ’em in now.”
“Wow! yes!” roared Texas. “An’ lick ’em when they git in. Whoop!”
“No,” laughed Mark, “that’s not what I mean. Let us go out by the
other entrance.”
“Yes.”
“And don’t let ’em get out again.”
It was truly a fine idea. The more the delighted plebes thought of it
the better they liked it. It would be far more exciting to trap the
enemy than simply to keep them off. Even Parson Stanard was dancing
about with delight. A few moments later the crowd was hurrying at full
speed up the narrow tunnel toward “the back door.”
Whatever mystery that tunnel may have contained the plebes got no
inkling of it. They did not stop to strike a light, but simply dashed
wildly ahead in the darkness. Mark thought once that he felt a figure
brush past him, but he scarcely gave it a thought. The party reached
the rock at the end of the passage, pushed it hastily away, and after
glancing about them, stole out and vanished in the woods.
As we know, the Seven had never used that entrance before, and, at
first, they did not know just where they were. They ascertained,
however, that the spot was on the hillside around to the south of the
cliff. They were completely out of the view of the cadets, but the
voices of the yearlings could be plainly heard.
“We’ve got quite a task,” Mark whispered to his companions. “We’ve got
to manage to creep around where we can watch them and there hide.”
Finally, however, they found a place where they could peer through the
bushes and watch the foe in safety, and there they huddled down and
waited impatiently.
It was quite funny to watch the yearlings. The latter, of course, did
not know that the fort had been deserted. They imagined that its
defenders were silently awaiting another attack. The yearlings were
determined to capture it and were holding a consultation.
The first scheme that they hit on was this: Everybody gathered some
stones in his hand and at a given signal let them drive through the
entrance. The missiles were expected to create havoc among the
watching plebes, a sort of artillery bombardment previous to an
infantry attack. You may imagine how the watching lads laughed at that
trick.
Naturally the shower of stones produced no result, and so there was
another consultation. At the end of it Rogers, somewhat bolder than
the rest, volunteered to risk the climb once more. It was a very
heroic resolve, and it took the hero no little time to get up the
nerve. Finally, however, he stepped forward and sprang up the ascent.
Our friends, the Seven, almost burst with laughter to see him duck and
dodge, as if expecting another shower of bones every moment. When he
reached the entrance his behavior was more ludicrous still.
Can you imagine a soldier peering over the top of a breastwork when he
knows that sharpshooters are near? That was Rogers. He would raise up
his head and then duck down again. Next time he would raise it a
little more, and then duck down further still. At last he managed to
get his eyes up to the level of the entrance and peered in. He saw
nothing suspicious, and so finally he took to exploring with one hand.
This he did in exactly the same way. He would thrust his arm into the
dark hole and then jerk it out again as if it had been bitten by a
snake. Then after a while he would put it in again. Meeting with no
resistance only made him the more cautious, for it convinced him that
the plebes were working a plot of some kind. They were doing that for
a fact, but not in the way Rogers suspected.
He soon got tired of that kind of attack. Reflecting that in all
probability the plebes wouldn’t hurt him much if they did capture him,
he suddenly sprang up and plunged head and shoulders through the hole.
A moment later his feet shot in, too, and he landed with a crash upon
the floor.
The anxiety with which those outside waited and listened may be
imagined. What would happen next they had no idea. Their comrade might
have been seized and gagged in an instant; he might have tumbled into
a barrel of water, or even paint; he might have broken his neck.
“Hello!” shouted the yearlings outside, “who’s in there?”
The answer came a moment later.
“Confound it, not a soul!”
“What’s it like?”
“Black as pitch. I can’t see a thing. Come in here, some of you
fellows, and bring a light.”
Encouraged by their leader’s boldness and the fact that he had not yet
been attacked, several of the yearlings sprang up the cliff. One of
them slid in and a moment later the listening plebes heard an
exclamation of surprise.
“Have you got a light?” they cried.
“Yes.”
“What’s it like?”
“It’s a great big cave. Good Heaven! and it’s all furnished up like a
house!”
“Where are the plebes?”
“Don’t see them anywhere. Come on in, and we’ll hunt for ’em.”
The yearlings couldn’t tumble in fast enough. And pretty soon the
majority of them were inside the cave, and running around with shouts
and exclamations of amazement.
“We’ve got ’em!” cried Mark. “Forward!”
You may imagine how hilarious they were. It was a case, if ever there
was such a case in the world, of “We have met the enemy and they are
ours.”
Inside the victims never once suspected the plight they were in. They
were roaming about the cave, exploring everything and becoming more
and more enraptured. It made Texas mad that they should dare thus to
take liberties with his cave, and he seized a thigh bone of a
counterfeiter in his hand and vowed tragically that he’d smash the
head of the first villain who dared to appear.
This fate the “villain” was apparently by no means anxious to hurry
toward, for the yearlings made no effort to leave the cave. They would
probably have stayed inside for the rest of the afternoon had it not
been for a sudden and truly startling development.
Texas had mounted to do guard duty. That is to say, he had seized his
white club and posted himself at the entrance, ready to whack at the
first sign of a yearling, when all of a sudden he and his friends were
horrified to hear a wild shriek from inside.
“Help! help!”
It was Rogers’ voice and a perfect babel of yells and cries succeeded
it.
“Look out! He’s hidden in there!”
“Fly, fly for your lives!”
“He’s got a knife. Help!”
“Hold him there. Grab that arm. Look out! He’s loose again!”
A moment later a scared white face appeared in the opening. It was one
of the yearlings and he glanced about him in alarm. A moment later he
swung himself out, dropped to the ground, and fled wildly into the
woods.
He had scarcely emerged before another followed, equally as scared.
The cries and shouts ceased as abruptly as they began and the
astounded plebes stood by and watched one by one the almost hysterical
cadets leap out of the black cavern. Without a single exception they
stopped to speak to no one, to look at no one, but dashed away into
the woods as if they had but one thought on earth――to get away from
the spot. Their terror was so great that nobody stopped to help
anybody else; as for the plebes standing nearby, nobody seemed even to
see them.
It was all over in a very few seconds. Mark tried to stop one of them,
but the frightened cadet wrenched free and dashed on.
They were battered and cut, their uniforms in tatters. Rogers was
bleeding from a wound in the arm and almost blind with fright as he
darted away.
After he was gone the place grew as silent as a grave. The amazed
plebes huddled together and stared at the hole, racking their brains
to think of what that most extraordinary occurrence could mean. They
half expected something to emerge, a wild animal, perhaps; but nothing
of the kind took place; the cave was black and still as ever. The
woods grew silent, too, as soon as the frightened yearlings had
disappeared. Nothing more occurred to explain the uncanny adventure.
Mark had been staring at his companions with a puzzled look upon his
face. They might have sat thus and stared at each other for an hour,
such was their consternation, had it not been for the fact that it was
then late in the afternoon and very near the time for dress parade.
Accordingly, they had to set out for camp, which ended the matter for
that day.
“But I’ll tell you this much,” was Mark’s verdict, “there’s a good
deal more mystery about that cave than you and I have the least idea
of.”
And there was, as it came to pass before many days. The mystery of the
cave was destined to form one of the most important incidents of
Mark’s stay at West Point.