water was now low, indeed, within a foot of the lowest point to which
we had ever known it to sink, which was favourable to our plan; for it
was necessary that our pipe should enter the lake below the water's
surface, even in the driest weather, and moreover if the latter had
been full, we should have found it very troublesome, and perhaps
impossible, to do as I shall now relate. This was nothing less than to
dam up the water of the lake for a little space, so that we might cut a
passage through the side of it towards our hut. To make this dam we
felled a number of logs and dragged them down to the bed of the lake,
where we arranged them in the shape of a great V, the point of the V
being out in the lake, the ends resting on the shore. We lashed the
logs together very firmly, and coated them with clay, and so made a dam
which we found to answer very well. Of course we had to bale out the
water which was first between the arms of the V, and Billy grumbled as
we did this, saying that he was sure there would be a heavy rainstorm,
and all our work would be for nothing; but in this he turned out a
false prophet, since we had no rain at all for many days.
[Illustration: Spade cut out of a log]
When the inside of the V was dry, its floor was about three feet below
the level of the water outside of it; and within that dry space we
could work very comfortably at making a cutting through the bank
towards the hut. To do this we had to make spades, which we fashioned
out of hard wood as well as we could with our axes, and they served our
purpose excellently well, though they would not have done so had not
the earth been soft; if it had been rocky, I know not what we should
have done. With these spades we began to cut away a portion of the
sloping bank of the lake, continuing till we had, as it were, taken a
slice or a wedge off it, up to within about three yards of our hut.
This took us two whole days, for the earth, though soft compared with
rock, was pretty compact, and our clumsy tools made us sigh often, and
sweat too.
Having come, as I say, to within ten feet or so of our hut, I thought
we might then give over digging and endeavour to pierce a way to a
point directly beneath the centre of the floor, or at least near enough
as that we might sink a shaft to meet it. We surveyed the position for
some little while, so as to take our bearings, as Billy said: and then,
having got a pretty good notion of the course our proposed passage
should take, we shoved into the earth, horizontally, a pole we had
sharpened to a point, and when we found we could push it in no further,
we drew it out and gave it another mighty shove, directing it in such a
way as we thought would bring it midway between the two corner posts,
though of course several feet below the floor. We found after a time
that, though we tried to drive the pole straight, nevertheless it
deflected somewhat towards the right; and when we pulled it out to give
it another shove, it met with some obstacle, which I was afraid might
be the bottom part of one of our posts, though I could not conceive how
we had gone so far out of our reckoning. But with a little more
pushing the pole, being in a certain degree flexible, went past the
obstacle, so that if this was one of the posts, it had not been met
squarely in the middle. The pole being now wholly in the earth except
just enough of it to hold by, we judged that we had driven it as far as
was needful, and mighty glad of it we were.
Leaving the pole in the earth, we set about boring in the floor of our
hut, not beginning midway between the door-posts, as we should have
done if we had encountered no obstacle, but a little to one side. We
proceeded here in the same manner as we had done in the bank of the
lake, using a sharp-pointed pole, only we drove it down in a vertical
direction; but we soon found that this would not effect our purpose, as
indeed we might have known before if we had thought about it, for it
was necessary that we should make a clean hole, which could not be done
by driving in a pole. After considering of it, we determined to get a
large piece of bamboo stalk, at least five inches across, and to drive
that into the earth with the pummet we had used in building the hut.
This we did, and placing the bamboo (a piece about three feet long) in
the hole we had already begun to drive, we dealt it several heavy blows
with the pummet, by this means driving it into the ground, and at the
same time forcing some earth up into its hollow interior. Then we took
the bamboo out, and carrying it outside the hut, poked all the earth
out of it, and when it was empty, put it once more into the hole, and
smote it again as before. This was a very tedious business, for as the
hole went deeper we had to use a longer piece of bamboo, and when we
had near finished the bamboo broke in the middle, and we had to dig to
a depth of three feet or more around the hole before we could reach the
lower portion to pull it out again, at which Billy was very wroth,
because the excavation had to be filled in again, so as to bring the
floor to its former level. However, we continued until the hole was
seven or eight feet deep, at which depth we thought we should come to
the pole we had driven through the bank; but it would have been
scarcely less than a miracle if we had bored the hole to the exact
spot, and we had indeed to enlarge its circumference until it measured
full thirty inches across, and not till then did we come to the pole.
When we did strike this we were both very joyful, for we had been
working at it for four full days, and had yet got but a very little way
in our design.
[Sidenote: A Surprising Discovery]
We went back now to the lake-side, and using bamboos as we had done in
the hut, but with longer and larger stems, we made little by little a
sort of tunnel about five inches wide running to the well we had sunk.
We then sank this latter a few inches below its former level, so as to
make a kind of cistern or reservoir for the water when it should flow
in from the lake; and in order that the water might not run away
through the soft earth, we let down a quantity of clay with which to
line the bottom, intending to bake it with fire after we had rammed it
until it became hard and tight. Billy took this work of ramming,
performing it with a long and stout pole, which he lifted high and then
brought down with great force, he always delighting to show the
strength of his muscles. However, he had just made a stroke of
particular power, when the beater pole slipped from his hands and he
fell flat on his face over the top of the well. He was on his feet
again in an amazing short time, and I laughed as he ran to the door,
holding his nose, I thinking he was running to the lake to bathe it.
But in a moment I was aware of a very evil smell which came without a
doubt from the well we had sunk, and it was so powerful, and also
noisome, that I very quickly beat a retreat too, and joined Billy
outside the hut.
"I'm poisoned," says Billy, spluttering and spitting on the ground.
"What did you do it for, master? I said as how 'twould be no use."
"You're a Job's comforter," said I, somewhat tartly, such a speech as
Billy's only sharpening the edge of adversity, to my thinking.
"You're another," says Billy, who did not in the least know what I
meant, his acquaintance with the Bible being at that time, I fear, very
slight. "There's the bottom knocked out of the well, and dead men's
bones below, that's what it is."
It did come into my head for a minute that we might have opened up some
grave, or at least a place where human folk had been overtaken and
buried by lava from the mountain; but I soon gave this up, for the
earth was soft, and not a whit like lava, and as for a grave, no one
would have dug it so deep down in the earth. I was just as much vexed
as Billy was at this untoward event, but I think I was even more
curious to learn what was beneath our unlucky well, and I went back
soon into the hut, intending to examine the place. However, the evil
smell was so overpowering that I was fain to seek the open air again,
and it was some time, an hour or two, maybe, before the air became
clear enough for us to enter the hut with any comfort. Bethinking
myself that the clearing of the air showed that there might be nothing
very terrible below, the foul smell being due to the sudden release of
air long imprisoned, I got a length of our rope, and let it down with a
stone on the end until it touched the bottom, which we found to be
twice as deep as before; and when I did this, I perceived another thing
which seemed to me mighty strange, which was nothing less than a
current of air passing up through the well. There was, it is true, a
passage now between the lake-side and the hut, but we had felt no
current when the connection was first established, and yet we could not
conceive of a current coming from the very bowels of the earth. Billy
declared, in something of a fright, that we had got down to the roots
of the mountain, whence came the steam and the hot water; but I
answered that this was plainly absurd, the current of air that we felt
being perfectly cool, though not very fresh.
I thought we might let down a torch into the well, whereby we should
perhaps be able to see something of what was below. Accordingly we
kindled a torch of kernels and let it down at the end of a rope, and
very evilly it smelled, I assure you. We observed that the flame
flickered a great deal until it descended to the first bottom of our
well, or perhaps two or three feet deeper; then the torch burnt more
steadily, but the flame did not rise straight up, but seemed to be
swayed a little to either side, and I could not help thinking, by the
look of it, that it was burning in a greater space than when it was in
our narrow well-shaft. Considering of some means of proving whether
this was so or not, I could at first see none, short of enlarging the
shaft until one of us could descend it, which indeed neither Billy nor
I was disposed to attempt. It was next day when an idea came into my
head, and that was occasioned by my seeing the spring-back of Billy's
bow when he shot at the running man, at which we exercised ourselves
now and again, seeing that we might have real men to shoot at some day.
The spring of the bow, I say, gave me a notion, and taking a flexible
strip of wood of the same tree, I tied one end of it to a long pole,
and then bent it double, not fastening it in that position, but
inserting it thus bent into the shaft, the sides of which prevented it
from springing back. Then I lowered the pole, and the bent piece of
wood scraped the sides of the well until it reached what had been the
bottom and a little beyond it; but then, as I still let down the pole,
the bent wood sprang loose, like as Billy's bow did, which showed very
plainly that the shaft was much wider below.
This discovery perplexed, nay, disquieted us. For one thing, it was a
mercy that we had not lighted on this hollow chamber, for such it must
be, when we were driving in the posts for our hut, for then we might
have broken our necks. As yet we were ignorant of the extent of this
open space, though we knew its depth, nor could we tell whether it in
any way endangered the firmness of the hut. Billy said that if he had
known there was such a cellar beneath us he would not have lifted a
hand to help me build, and I own that if we had discovered it when we
were beginning to build, I should have assuredly chosen another
situation. But after spending so many months of hard work in putting
up our hut, I was very loath to leave it now and begin all over again,
though it was a staggering thought that at any moment of the day or
night we might sink, and the hut too, and maybe be cast into another
hole, for we could not tell but that the second bottom might give way
like the first. Moreover, even supposing that our hut was no less safe
than before, all the labour that we had been put to in devising a means
of supplying ourselves with water from the lake had gone for nought. I
think this was the heaviest blow we had had since we took up our abode
on the island, and for a time we stood stock-still, contemplating the
dark hole that was the grave, so to speak, of our hopes.
CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH
OF OUR SUBTERRANEOUS ADVENTURE, AND THE MANNER IN WHICH THE WILD DOGS
PROFITED BY OUR ABSENCE
"Billy," said I, after we had stood silent a good while, "we must find
out what is below."
"What's the good?" says Billy; "and how can you do it? Neither of us
can scrooge ourselves down through this hole, and I ain't a-going to
try, that's certain."
"But you can help to make the hole wider," I replied.
"And suppose I fall in," says he, "who'll pull me out?"
"I should certainly do my best," said I.
"And suppose you fall in too?" says he, being very persistent.
"Then we shall help each other out," said I.
"And suppose we find ourselves in the old smoker's kitchen, or get
buried alive or something?" says Billy.
"We won't suppose any more, but just set to work," said I. "I will dig
out the earth, and you can carry it away, and then there'll be no
chance of your tumbling in."
The matter being put thus, Billy would by no means agree to it, but
insisted that he would take his turn with me at digging. He asked me,
however, how the earth was to be carried away, for if we did it with
our hands it would take a month of Sundays. I answered that we must
certainly make some baskets, which was a pretty easy matter after a
little practice, there being plenty of rushes and such-like things
growing at the borders of the lake. Having made two very fair baskets,
that would hold about a bushel apiece, we began with our spades to cut
away the earth around the hole, Billy carrying it outside the hut when
I dug, and I doing the same when he dug. This work was exceeding
laborious, since when digging we had to be very careful not to let the
earth fall down the shaft and choke it up, and also the basketfuls of
earth had to be hauled up every few minutes. We were several days at
the work before we came to the bamboo pipe we had driven in from the
lake side--not, of course, that we did nothing else, having our other
duties to attend to, and besides we now went up to our watch-tower
three times, and sometimes four, every day, so that the savages should
not come in their canoes and take us by surprise.
[Sidenote: The Cavern]
Having got down to the pipe, which, as I have said, was but a few
inches above the cavity into which we had broken, we saw that we must
be even more careful, for if the earth should give way all of a sudden,
as it did before, we might for all we knew be hurled into a bottomless
abyss. All the time we had been digging we had felt the current of
cool air striking upward against us, from which it was plain that the
chamber below was not a perfectly closed vault, and the only comfort we
had of this was that we were certainly not coming to the old smoker's
kitchen, as Billy called it, for then the air would have been hot. To
avoid this headlong fall, I considered we should now cease to stand on
the ledge of earth at the side of the hole, and rig up a rope ladder
which we might attach securely to the doorposts above. Billy was
digging when this idea came into my head, he being lighter than I, and
after I told him of it he scrambled up very quickly by means of steps
we had cut in the side, confessing he was glad to get out in safety.
It took us some time to make a rope ladder, but when it was done, and
fastened to the doorposts, I descended and hacked away with my spade at
the sides of the hole below me until I had made it big enough for my
body to go through. Then I got Billy to hand down to me a lighted
torch, and bending as low as I could, I clung to the ladder with one
hand, and with the other held the torch in the space below, being
nearly suffocated by its stinking fumes. However, by moving the torch
backwards and forwards I made out that the space was a small chamber,
oblong in shape, but not regular, and with a floor, but, so far as I
could see, no outlet, though I knew there must be one, because of the
current of air. Feeling by no means sure of the depth of the floor
below me, I clambered up again and pulled the ladder after me, and we
lengthened it by some three feet before I descended again. By the
light of my torch I then saw that I could drop to the floor without any
danger, and I let go the ladder, and fell upon my feet on hard rock.
"What cheer, master?" calls out Billy, with his face close to the top
of the shaft above. I told him that I was safe and what manner of
place I was in, and said I would explore further, and when I did so I
found that we had no need to trouble ourselves about the safety of our
hut, because the walls of this underground chamber were of hard rock,
like the rocks on the sides of the mountain, and the roof the same,
except at the place where we had dug our shaft. How this came to be I
did not trouble to think,[1] nor did it concern us, the great matter
for us being that our hut had a solid foundation, which was a great
comfort. When I told this to Billy, by shouting up through the shaft,
the sound of my voice echoing very strangely, he cried back that he was
glad to hear it and that he was coming down to see. "No, no," I cried
at this; "you keep guard above while I seek further; and besides, the
ladder does not reach the ground, and perhaps you couldn't get up
again."
"Then how will you get up, master?" says Billy.
"Why, you can draw the ladder up while I go exploring, and by the time
I come back you can lengthen it," was my answer.
This he agreed to do, only he begged me not to be long.
[Sidenote: A Tunnel]
When I came to examine the chamber, I found it to be neither so large
nor so lofty as I had first supposed. The general height of it was not
above five feet, though in parts it rose to ten feet or more. I had
soon made a tour about the chamber, the compass of which was perhaps
sixty or seventy feet, and in one corner of it I at last discovered an
opening, through which, I did not doubt, came the current of air I have
before mentioned. It was, as I found when I held my torch to it, a
very low and narrow passage, not above four feet high, and the draught
of air was so strong that it made my torch flare, and, indeed, was like
to blow it out. This made me consider whether I had not better rest
content and go no further; but curiosity was strong within me, and so I
went into the passage, or tunnel, having to bend my body very low, and
crept along with great caution, holding the torch in front of me lest I
came unawares upon a chasm and broke my neck. The passage seemed to me
to incline slightly downward, though I could not be sure of this, since
there were not only several crooks and turns in it, so that not many
yards of it were straight, but also it was in some parts pretty near
choked with rocks and stones, which I supposed had fallen from the roof
and sides. However, I picked my way among these obstacles when they
occurred, and found as I went on that the passage became both wider and
loftier, so that I was able to stand upright.
After I had gone some distance through this tunnel, wondering whether
it was natural or had been made by men's hands, and inclining to the
former belief, I perceived that it was joined by another passage which
ran into it from my right hand, and the two passages thus joined in one
became a tunnel which increased both in width and height the further I
went. Whereas at starting from the cavern I had had to bend low, with
little space on either side of me, I now found myself in a passage
which in some parts was as much as twenty feet high, as near as I could
guess in the deceitful light of my torch, and so wide that five or six
men could easily have walked abreast in it. And as I still kept my
eyes cast down, being heedful of my footing, I perceived by and by on
the floor of the passage sundry small whitish objects which, when I
stooped to examine them, I found to be shells, and they became more
numerous the further I went. I began now to question with myself
whether this tunnel did not communicate with the sea, and whether the
sea ever came up through it so far into the interior of the island, for
the cavern whence I had started on this journey was directly below our
hut, and that was situate at least half a mile from the sea-shore.
I went on, being eager to satisfy myself on this point, and holding my
torch about the level of my head, when all at once I felt the skin of
my hand scorched, and, looking up, saw that the flame was burning very
low, which had escaped me, so much were my thoughts taken up. I had no
mind to pursue this journey in darkness, for though I had come very
well to this point, I knew not whereto the tunnel would bring me, nor
what perils might be lurking in the way. Accordingly I turned myself
about, purposing to acquaint Billy with what I had discovered, and to
come again, either with him or alone, with sufficient light to hold out
to the end. But I soon saw, to my exceeding discomfort, that I had
already presumed too much upon the endurance of my torch, which was
flickering lower and lower, and within a little, though I made what
haste I could, went out altogether. At this I was mightily vexed,
though not alarmed, for the floor of the tunnel was perfectly sound,
albeit rough, and I did not look for the least difficulty in making my
way back to the cavern. Though not alarmed, I say, I was vexed, for I
could not go nearly so fast in the dark, and I began to think that
Billy might be a little uneasy at my long absence. As to myself, there
was only one thing to trouble about, and that was to keep to the right
hand, so that I should not fail of re-entering the passage by which I
had come when I arrived at the place where the other passage joined
with it. To make sure on this point I felt with my hand along the wall
at my right, and found this a help to me for some distance; but by and
by I had to leave it, so as to get past some rocks that stood in my
way, and in a little while after I returned to it I stumbled clean over
another obstacle, hurting my hands and knees, though luckily my head
did not strike the ground.
[Sidenote: Lost]
When I rose up, I could not find the wall at once, the passage here
being exceedingly rough with loose rocks and stones. I stumbled on,
and now for the first time the thought came into my head, how awful it
would be if a man were lost in such an underground passage as this, not
at first thinking of this plight as likely to be mine, though soon I
did begin to be very uneasy, and indeed I was almost overcome with
horror when all of a sudden I thought, "What if there be a perfect
network of these passages in the island, and I can never light on the
cavern again?" I wished now very heartily that I had let Billy come
down to me when he offered it, but there was no use in wishing, so I
groped my way onward, having now got my hand upon the wall again.