INDIAN’S FIGHT FOR LIFE.
The feeling of horror which overwhelmed the helpless prisoners at that
awful moment exceeds the possibility of description. They heard their
comrade’s scream, and that told them that no accident had caused the
shutting of the door. An enemy had done it! They were lost!
But terrible though their agony was, it was nothing to that of the
unfortunate Indian. For Indian was alone in the cave with the frenzied
maniac!
The timid lad had shrunk back in alarm before the hideous apparition
with the upraised knife. Then he stood staring helplessly, trembling
like a leaf. He was unarmed; flight was impossible.
What should he do?
The old man flung his weight against the door to make sure that it was
really shut. And then he whirled furiously about and faced his one
remaining victim. Revenge and fury gleamed in his eyes as he stared.
And the knotted muscles stood out on his clinched and eager hands.
There was to be a desperate battle in that dark and silent chamber.
Perhaps if the creature had made even one sound to show that he was
human the lad might have suffered less concentrated terror. But the
man was as silent as the tomb he dwelt in. No cat could have crept
more stealthily than he did when he began to advance.
He was in no hurry to do that, no hurry to relieve the frightful
strain upon his trembling victim’s mind. He crouched low and glared
furiously, as if meanwhile calculating his next move. Then silently he
put out one foot and stole forward.
Indian’s eyes were fixed upon him, as if held by some uncanny spell.
As the man advanced Indian shrank back instinctively, his movement
almost keeping time with the maniac, though his knees trembled so that
he nearly fell to the floor.
The man crept forward again, one step; and again one step Indian
shrank back. He was so stupefied with terror, poor lad, that he could
not even think that such a method could not save him. The wall of the
cave was behind him! One step must soon prove his last.
They say that when a man is drowning he lives his life in the seconds
in which he dies. The whole past rushes up before him as if the Book
of Life was held before him. Nothing like that happened in Indian’s
case. He seemed to have but one thought; his fascinated gaze was fixed
upon his steadily-advancing foe.
The old man was a terrible sight to look at. His fierce, exultant look
of triumph made him doubly hideous, if such a thing could be. His
bright eyes flashed and his teeth gleamed, as a savage tiger’s might.
Set in the mass of clotted and tangled bloody hair it made a face that
might well cause the bravest to tremble. And certainly our timid and
helpless Joseph Smith shook with terror.
Indian had another thought to overcome him at that time of terror. Not
only his own safety, but his friends’! All rested with him! He alone
could help them. Loud sounds rang deafeningly in his ears from behind
that iron door. Cries of terror, voices pleading for help, all, all of
them shouting his name. And in front of him, between him and the door,
was the advancing maniac and his ever-gleaming knife.
A wild and desperate thought flashed over the agonized lad. One dash
for the door! He might succeed in turning the fatal knob before the
knife struck. But as Indian looked the fierce old man seemed to
comprehend his purpose. His knotted muscles settled into a firmer and
more tense position, as if he were nerving himself to be ready to
spring at the move. At the same time he crept on still faster, and
poor Indian shrank back in dread.
Indian gazed about the cavern helplessly; his glance roamed over the
floor and the walls, as if searching for something to aid him. But
what could he hope to find? And then, suddenly, as his glance returned
to the maniac, the lad sprang back with a shriek of terror.
The man had leaped forward!
Indian turned wildly as if to flee; he struck against a chair that lay
in his path and then half instinctively he seized it, and as he felt
his foe’s hot breath behind him, faced about and raised the slight
weapon on high.
The old man made a savage spring and closed with his victim. The plebe
brought the chair down with a desperate effort, all the strength that
was in his body. A moment later he uttered a gasp of joy.
He had struck the descending knife. The shattered blade was falling to
the ground!
But Indian’s triumph was for but a moment. With a hiss of rage, the
savage creature leaped forward again. Indian turned once more and fled
at the top of his speed.
An instant later he caught sight of a black tunnel looming up before
him――the passageway that led out――to safety! to friends! With
redoubled speed, the lad plunged in; he ran as never had he run before
in his life. For behind him he heard the quick, pattering footsteps of
his pursuer, and the panting breath.
It was a race for life, and it was short. Indian reached the end,
flung himself against the rock that barred the entrance. And the next
instant he felt a heavy body leap upon his back; felt two griping,
clawlike fingers close upon his gasping throat. And then down he went,
kicking, struggling, gasping, suffocating, then all grew dark before
him.
A minute or two later the maniac crept softly out from the entrance of
that black tunnel. There was yet a fiercer gleam of triumph in his
eyes and he raised his clinched hands above him as if in frenzied joy.
Then he turned and shook them menacingly at the dungeon where the rest
of his prey were lying.
What of them, meanwhile?
Nothing much, except that they were suffering agony that cannot be
described――agony of dread, suspense, uncertainty. Everything was
hidden from them. Who had shut them up? And what of Indian? His
silence surely boded no good. And would they suffocate? Or starve? Or
what on earth would happen next?
They stood and stared at one another in helpless dread; even the bold
Texan was unnerved by his awful situation. They remembered that the
Parson had said a man would suffocate in that vault in half an hour.
Was that to be their fate, then? They waited, counting the seconds in
dread.
But the fates had not, it seemed, meant them for so kindly a death as
that. The air in the room did not grow close, though they waited and
waited, wondering why it was. They realized at last. They had once dug
several small holes in the top wall of masonry to further a practical
joke of theirs. There was also a crack between the iron door and the
bottom of the cave. The combination was all that saved the five
captives from asphyxiation.
And yet that might have been better than what stared them in the face.
They had no implement to pierce the wall. The floor of the cave was
rock. The fiend who had shut them in would surely never let them out!
And what then? Starvation!
Thinking over that horrible prospect a sudden idea flashed over Mark.
It made his heart bound with sudden hope. The Parson!
“He may come in!” gasped Mark. “Heaven help us, we may be saved yet!”
If Mark had only been able to see the savage figure that was dancing
like a caged hyena swiftly and silently up and down the shadowy cave
he might have doubted his last living hope. At any rate, the crisis
was soon to come.
The prisoners were lying on the ground, with staring eyes and ears
intent, listening for the faintest sound. The dreadful pattering steps
they heard plainly and wondered what they meant. A moment later came
another sound.
“Hello! By Zeus, where are you and what are you doing?”
The footsteps ceased abruptly. It was the Parson at the entrance of
the cave!
The shouts and yells that followed his voice must have scared the
learned scholar out of his boots.
“Go back! Help! Help! Run and get somebody! Look out! Fly for your
life! There’s somebody in the cave! Help!”
These and a thousand other warnings the agonized plebes were shrieking
at the top of their lungs. Oh, so much depended on the Parson! If he,
too, were overpowered! If he, too――――
“Hurry back to camp!” roared Mark, at the top of his lungs. “Don’t
lose a moment! Fly!”
“By Zeus!” gasped the astonished Parson. “By the nine immortals, the
inhabitants of ’the many-peaked Olympus!’ By Apollo and Hercules and
the followers of Neptune!”
“Run! Run! Run for your life! Don’t you hear me?”
“But wherefore should I run? By Zeus, this is altogether the most
extraordinary condition of affairs that has ever come under my
cognizance!”
By this time the prisoners were nearly hysterical.
“Run! Run!” they kept shrieking. “Don’t come inside!”
“But, by Zeus!” gasped the Parson, who it must be said was leaning
halfway through the hole in the rock and peering into the darkness,
listening to the medley of muffled voices in consternation. “But, by
Zeus! why should I run? In the name of Pallas and her distaff, I
demand――――”
“There’s somebody in the cave! They’ve shut us in here! We’ll die! Oh,
oh! And you’ll be killed!”
“By Zeus!”
“Run! Run! Get help! Don’t come in! Do you hear?”
By this time the puzzled scholar began to comprehend. His friends, and
he, too, perhaps, were in peril. If he could have seen the horrible
figure that had been stealing upon him with the stealth and swiftness
of a panther he would have realized his danger, indeed.
“By Zeus!” he called. “I begin to perceive. Forsooth, I will
immediately hie myself――――Good heavens!”
The maniac had made the fatal leap!