fresh air which came to us through a tunnel's mouth as by asiphon from the open sea herself; and, blowing freshly on our faces,sent us quickly down towards it with glad cries and the spirits of menwho have broken a prison gate.
"The sea, the sea, by all that's holy!" cries Peter Bligh. "Oh, doctor,I breathe, I breathe, as I am a Christian man, I breathe!"
We tumbled down into the pit headlong and sat there for many minuteswondering if, indeed, the death were passed or if we must face it againin the minutes to come. There before us, once we had passed thetunnel's mouth, stood a vast, domed hall which, I declare, men mighthave cut and not Nature in the depths of that strange cavern.
Open to the day through great apertures high up in the face of thecliff, a soft glow like the light which comes through the windows of achurch streamed upon the rocky floor and showed us the wonders of thatawesome place. Room upon room, we saw, cave upon cave; some round likethe mosques a Turk can build, others lofty and grand as any cathedral;some pretty as women's dens, all decked with jewels and ornament ofjasper and walls of the blackest jet. These things I saw; these rooms Ipassed through. A magician might have conjured them up; and yet he wasno magician, but only Duncan Gray, the man I knew for the first timeyesterday, but already called a comrade.
"Doctor," I said, "it is a house of miracles, truly! But where tonow--aye, that's the question; where to?"
He sat upon a stone, and we grouped ourselves about him. Peter Blightook out a pipe from his pocket and was not forbidden to light it.There was a distant sound in the cave like that of water rushing, andonce another sound to which I could give no meaning. The doctor himselfwas still thinking deeply, as though hazarding a guess as to ourposition.
"Boys," he said, "I'll tell you the whole story. This place wasdiscovered by Hoyt, a Dutchman. If Czerny had read his book, he wouldknow of it; but he hasn't. I took the trouble to walk in because Ithought it might be useful when he turned nasty. It is going to bethat, as you can see. Follow through to the end of it, and you are inCzerny's house. Will you go there or hold back? It's for you to say."
I filled my pipe, as Peter had done, and, breathing free for the firsttime for some hours, I tried to speak up for the others.
"A sailor's head tells me that there is a road from here to the reef;is that true?" asked I at last; "is it true, doctor?"
He put on his glasses and looked at me with those queer, clever eyes ofhis. I believe to this day that our dilemma almost pleased him.
"A sailor's head guesses right first time," was his answer. "There is aroad under the sea from here to Czerny's doorstep. I'm waiting to knowif it's on or back. You know the risks and are not children. Say thatyou turn it up and we'll all go back together, or stay here as wisdomdictates. But it's for you to speak----"
We answered him all together, though Peter Bligh was the first heheard.
"The lodgings here being free and no charge for extras," said Peter,sagely.
And Dolly Venn, he said:
"We are five, at any rate. I don't suppose they would murder us. Afterall, Edmond Czerny is a gentleman."
"Who shoots the poor sailormen that's wrecked on his shore;" put inSeth Barker, doggedly.
"He'd be of the upper classes, no doubt;" added Peter Bligh; "he'll seethat we don't sleep in damp sheets! Aye, 'tis the devil of a man,surely!"
Doctor Gray heard them patiently--more patiently than I did--and thenwent on again:
"If you stop here, you starve; if you go on--well, you take your luck.Should the fog lift up yonder, you'll be having Czerny back again. It'sa rule-of-three sum, gentlemen. For my part, I say 'go on and take yourluck,' but I won't speak for you unless you are willing."
"None more willing," cried I, coming to a resolution on the spot."Forward let it be, and luck go with us. We'd be fools to die like ratsin a trap when there's light and food not a mile away. And cowards,too, boys--cowards!" I added.
The others said: "Aye, aye, we're no cowards!" And all being of onemind we set out together through that home of wonders. Edmond Czerny'shouse we sought, and thither this iron road would carry us. A path morebeautiful no man has trodden. From this time the great, church-likegrottos gave place to lower roofs and often black-dark openings. Byhere and there we dived into tunnels wondrously cut by some forgottenriver of fire in the ages long ago, and, emerging again, we entered awilderness of ravines wherefrom even the sky was to be seen and thecliffs towering majestically above us. Then, at last, we left thedaylight altogether, and going downward as to the heart of the earth Iknew that the land lay behind us and that the sea flowed above ourheads.
Reader of a plain seaman's story, can you come with me on such ajourney as I and four stout hearts made on that unforgotten day? Canyou picture, as I picture now, that dark and lonesome cavern, with thesea beating upon its roof and the air coming salt and humid to thetongue, and the echo of distant breakers in your ears, and always thenight and the doubt of it? Can you follow me from grotto to grotto andlabyrinth to labyrinth, stumbling often by the way, catching at thelantern's dancing rays, calling one to the other, "All's well--leadon"? Aye, I doubt that you can. These things must be seen with a man'sown eyes, heard with his own ears, to be understood and made real tohim. To me that scene lives as though yesterday had brought it. I seethe doctor with his impatient step. I see Peter Bligh stumbling afterhim. I hear little Dolly Venn's manly voice; I help Seth Barker overthe rocks. And these four stand side by side with me on the whitepool's edge. The danger comes again. The fear, the loathing, areunforgotten.
I speak of fear and loathing and of dread white pool, and you will askme why and how we came thereto. And so I say that the water lay,may-be, a third of a mile from the land, in a clear, transparent basinof some quartz or mica, or other shining mineral, so that it gave outcrystal lights even to the darkness, and the arched grotto which heldit was all aglow, as though with hidden fires. A silent pool it was, wesaid, and our path seemed to end upon its brink; but even as we stoodasking for a road, all the still water began to heave and foam, and, agreat creature rising up from the depths, the lantern showed us amonster devil-fish, and we fell back one upon the other with affrightedcries. Nor let any man charge us with that. A situation more perilous Ihave never been in, and never shall. The fish's terrible suckerssearching all the rocks, the frightful eye of the brute, the rushingwater, the half-light worse than darkness, might well have driven backa stronger man than I. And upon the top of that was the thought that bysuch lay the road to safety. We must pass the grotto, or perish ofstarvation.
Now, the first fright of this encounter was done with in a minute ortwo, and when it was plain to us that the devil-fish was stuck in thepool which some tide of the sea fed, perhaps, and that his suckerscould not reach the higher part of the rock, we began to speak of itrationally, and to plan a way of going over. I was for emptying ourrevolvers into the fish straight away; but the doctor would have noneof it, fearing the report, and, remembering what he had read in theDutchman's book, he came out with another notion.
"Hoyt went over the rocks," said he, calmly, while we still drew backfrom the pool affrighted, our hearts in our boots I make sure, and notone of us that did not begin to think of the fog again when he saw thedevil-fish struggling to be free. "It's not a sweet road, but betterthan none at all. Keep behind me, boys, and mind you don't slip oryou'll find something worse than sharks. Now for it, and luck go withus."
With this he began to clamber round the edge of the pool, but so highup that it did not seem possible for the fish to touch him. There wasgood foothold on the jagged hunks of rock, and a man might have goneacross safely enough but for the thought of that which was below him.For my part, I say that my eyes followed him as you may follow a walkeron a tight-wire. One false step would send him flying down to a death Iwould not name, and that false step he appeared to make. My God! I seeit all so clearly now. The slip, the frantic clutch at the rocks, thegreat tentacle which shot out and gripped his leg, and then the flashof my own revolver fired five times at the terribl
e eyes below me.
There were loud cries in the cave, the wild shouts of terrified men,the smoke of pistols, the foaming and splashing of water, all the signsof panic which may follow a fellow-creature about to die. That thedevil-fish had caught the doctor with one of his tentacles you couldnot doubt; that he would drag him down into that horrid stomach, Imyself surely believed. Never was a fight for life a more awful thingto see. On the one hand a brave man gripping the rocks with hands andfoot until the crags cut his very flesh; on the other that ghoul-likehorror seeking to wind other claws about its prey and to drag ittowards its gaping mouth. What miracle could save him, God alone knew;and yet he