CHAPTER EIGHT.
THE DARK JAWS OF DEATH.
All as in a lightning flash some flicker of hope returned. For he sawthey were underneath the place which Nesta pointed out to him as havingafforded refuge to at any rate one in their position. It was their onlychance. Hope well nigh died again. To climb there alone would besomething of an undertaking--but with a helpless girl--
Yet he reached that point of refuge, but how he did so Campian neverknew--never will know to his dying day. The superhuman effort; thehellish deafening din of the black flood as it shot past, so near as tosplash them, clinging there to the steep rock face, not more than halfway up to the place of refuge; of the words of encouragement which hewhispered to his half-fainting charge athwart the thunder-roar of thewaters, as he literally dragged her up beside him; of the tearingmuscles and cracking joints, and blazing, scintillating brain--of allthese he has a dim and confused recollection, and can only attribute theaccomplishment of the feat to a well nigh superhuman mania ofdesperation.
Higher still! No time for a pause or rest--no permanent foothold ishere--and the waters are still rising. He dared not so much as lookdown. The daze of the lightning striking upon the rock face aided hisefforts. The crash of the thunder peal was as entirely drowned in thebellowing and strident seething of this huge syphoned flood, as thoughit were silent.
The refuge at last, but what a refuge! Only by the most carefuldistribution of weight could two persons support themselves on it forany length of time. It was hardly even a ledge, hardly more than a mereunevenness in the rock's surface. Yet, one of these two persons was aterribly frightened and far from robust girl; the other seemed to haveexpended air the strength within him in the effort of getting there atall. Thus they clung, mere pigmy atoms against this stupendous cliffwall; suspended over the seething hell of waters that would have churnedthe life out of them within a moment or so of reaching its surface.
"There! We are safe now!" he gasped, still panting violently after theexertion. "We have only to wait until the water runs off. It will soondo that, you know."
"No, it will not," she replied, her blue eyes wide with terror, andshudderingly turning her face to the cliff to avoid the awfulness of thesight. "It may take days. The _tangi_ by the camp took a whole nightonce. It was the night you came."
"Well, even then? Upward will have had time to get through safely,ample time, and at the first opportunity they will come for us."
"They won't find us," she moaned. "You know that place I showed youwhere Bhallu Khan told us the water had risen high enough to sweep a manoff. It was higher than this."
"I think not I think this is the higher of the two," he answeredmendaciously. In her fear she had not recognised the place, and hewould not undeceive her. For his part, he blessed the chance that hadput the idea into his head. But for her having narrated the incident asthey rode past, it might never have occurred to him that the attempt wasfeasible, and--what then?
"We mustn't discount the worst," he went on.
"The chances of it rising any higher are _nil_, and even if it does,there is plenty of margin before it reaches us. It isn't as if it werea case of an incessant and regular downpour. It is only one of thosesharp afternoon thunder showers that run off these great slab-like rocksas off a roof on a huge scale. My dear little girl, you must be brave,and thank Heaven we were able to fetch this place at all. Look, Ibelieve it has run off a little lower already."
"Oh, no--no! I can't look. It is horrible--horrible!" she answered, asventuring one peep forth, she again hid her face, shuddering.
And in truth her terror was little to be wondered at. It was growingdusk now in the world without, and the roar and hiss of the vast floodcoursing with frightful velocity between those grim, cavernous cliffs inthe shades, would have tried the nerves of anybody contemplating thescene from the impartial vantage ground of a place of safety. How thendid it seem to these two, crouching on a steep slant of rock, whoseunevenness alone sustained them in position; cowering over this awfulflood, which might at any moment, rising higher, sweep them into ahorrible death? And then, that the situation should lose nothing of itsterror, Campian noticed, with a sinking of the heart, that the wateractually was rising.
Yes. A mark upon the iron-bound face of the opposite cliff, which hadcaught his attention on first being able to look round, was now covered.Was it the gathering gloom, or had the scratch been washed away? No.The latter was stratified. The water had risen nearly two feet.
The depth at first he judged to be about ten feet. Two more had beenadded. He fixed another mark. The roaring was already so fearful itcould hardly be increased. The hissing, boiling eddies of the rush,leaped over the new mark, then subsided--leaped again, and this time didnot subside. They streamed over, hiding it completely. And still therain poured down pitilessly, and he thought he could detect a peal ofthunder above the roar of the waters, which suggested a renewed burstover the very catchment area which had supplied this flood. Well, hehad done what he could. The end was not in his hands.
"Oh-h--how cold it is!" moaned Nesta.
"Of course; I was forgetting," he replied, with great difficultydivesting himself of his coat, for hardly so much as a finger could bespared in the effort involved to hold himself--to hold both of them--inposition. But it was done at last, and the garment, all too light, hewrapped around the girl's shivering form. She uttered a feeble protest,which took not much overruling.
"What a precious pair of drowned rats we must look, Nessita," he said;"and what a sight we shall be when they find us in the morning."
"But they never will find us in the morning--not me, at any rate."
"Won't they? They will though, and you will be the first to think ofthe appearances. Why, that pretty curled fringe that I and those twosodger Johnnies were eager to die for a little while ago is all over theshop. You should just see it now."
Thus he bantered, as though they were in the snug dining tent atUpward's camp instead of amid a raving hell of terror and of imminentdeath. But the while the man's heart died within him, for in the lastfaint touch of light he noticed that yet another mark, higher than therest, had disappeared.
"I wonder which of those two Johnnies aforesaid would give most to beable to change places with me now," he went on, still bantering. "Or,at any rate, won't they just say so to-morrow? Here, you must get upclose to me," he said, drawing her right to him. "It will serve thedouble purpose of keeping you from going overboard and keeping youwarmer, and me too, perhaps."
If ever there was time and place for conventionality, assuredly it wasnot here. Her violent shivering quieted down as she nestled againsthim. The warmth of the contact and the additional sense of protectioncombined to work wonders.
"Now, talk to me," he said; "or try and go to sleep, if you wouldrather. I'll take care you don't fall over."
"Sleep? I don't suppose I shall ever sleep again."
"Rather, you will. And, Nessie, shall I tell you something you'd ratherlike to hear? The water is already beginning to go down."
"What else has it been doing ever since we came up here?"
"That's right!" he cried, delighted at this little spark of the old funloving nature reasserting itself. "But, bar jokes, it really islowering. I have kept an eye upon certain marks that were covered justnow. They are visible again."
The rain had ceased. The bellowing of the flood was as loud as ever,and but that they were talking into each other's ears, their voiceswould have been well nigh inaudible. What he had said was true, andwith a great gladness of heart, he recognised the fact.
"No, no! You are only saying that to make me think it is all right,"she answered, the wild eagerness in her tone betraying something of thestrain she had undergone. "It can't be really--is it? Say--is itreally?"
"It is really, so far as I can judge. But it has turned so confoundedlydark, one can hardly see anything. Keep up your spirits, child. Youhave had an adventure
, that's all."
"Well, you are a good one to share it with," she murmured. "Tell me,were you ever afraid of anything in your life?"
"I should rather think I was, of heaps of things. I should have beenhideously so before we started to climb up here, only there wasn't time.Oh don't make any mistake about me. I know what funk is, and that ofthe bluest kind."
Thus he talked on, lightly, cheerily, and the girl, if she could notquite forget her numbness and terror and exhaustion, was conscious of nosmall alleviation of the same. It was pitch dark now, but the thunderof the waters, and the cavernous rattle of the stones and pebbles sweptalong by their rush, seemed to have abated in volume. An hour went by,then two. Nesta, half asleep, was answering drowsily. The gloom of thegreat chasm lightened. A full moon had risen over the outside world,and its rays were penetrating even to these forbidding depths. Theroaring of the flood had become a mere purling ripple. The water hadalmost run off.
Campian was becoming frightfully exhausted. Not much longer could hesupport this strain. Would Upward never arrive? He had succeeded,providentially, in climbing up here, under stress of desperation, but todescend safely now, cramped and exhausted as they both were, would beimpossible. A broken neck, or a broken limb or two, would be the sureand certain result of any such attempt.
As the moon-rays brightened, he could make out the bottom of the_tangi_, and it looked hideously far down, almost as if the rush ofwater had worn it deeper. It was all seamed and furrowed up, and thewater was now babbling down in several little streams. Would help neverarrive!
Ha! At last! Voices--native voices--then, although talking in anOriental tongue, other voices, recognisable as European ones. The soundwas coming down the _tangi_.
"Wake up, Nessita. Here they are, at last."
But the girl had already heard, and started up with a suddenness whichwould have hurled her to the base of the cliff but for his restraininggrasp.
"Wait, wait!" he urged. "Be doubly careful now. We don't want to breakour necks after a narrow shave of drowning." Then lifting up his voice,he gave forth a mighty shout.
It was answered--answered by several voices. In the moonlight theycould make out figures hurrying down the _tangi_.
"Where are you?" sung out Upward, who led the way. Then he stoppedshort, with an ejaculation of amazement, as the answer revealed theobjects of his search high overhead. "Good heavens! how did you get upthere?"
"Never mind now. What _we_ want to know is how to get down."
But with Bhallu Khan and one of his forest guard were two or threesturdy Baluchis, who had joined the party--all wiry mountaineers--and bydint of making a kind of human pyramid against the rock wall, the pairwere landed safely beneath.
Then many were the questions and answers and ejaculations, as the fullperil of the situation became apparent. Those who had undergone it hadnot much to say. Nesta seemed half dazed with exhaustion and recentterror, while Campian declared himself too infernally tired to talk.Fleming however produced a flask, which went far to counteract the coldand wet. The whole party was there. They had got safely through the_tangi_, when the rain began to come down in torrents, and in anincredibly short space of time the slab-like slopes of the hills hadpoured down a vast volume into the dry nullah, which drained the valleyarea. They themselves were through only just in time, but had felt nogreat anxiety on account of the other two, reckoning them so far behindthat the impassability of the _tangi_ would be obvious to them directlythey reached it. Of course they would not attempt it. But to find themhere, half way through--saved as by a miracle, and then with the loss oftwo horses--no, they had not reckoned upon that.
All this Upward explained. Then, looking up at their place of refuge:
"I don't suppose there's another place in the whole length of the_tangi_ you could have taken refuge in, and how the mischief you evergot to this one is a mystery to me."
"Well, for the matter of that, so it is to me, Upward," rejoinedCampian. "I'm perfectly certain I couldn't do it again for a thousandpounds."
"Why, that's the place a man was swept off from the year before last.Isn't it, Bhallu Khan?"
"_Ha, Huzoor_!" asserted the forester, taking in the burden of theirtalk.
"Well, you've had a narrow escape, old chap--both of you have. I don'tknow how you did it, but here you are. We were coming back to look foryou, thinking you had got turned round, and might get trying some otherway back, and this isn't an over-safe country for a couple of strangersto get lost in at night. By the way, I can't make out why you got sofar behind. More than once we kept signalling you to come on. Itoccurred to us you might miss the way. Didn't you see us?"
"No."
"None so blind as those who won't see--ah--ha--ha--ha!" sneeredBracebrydge, tailing off his vacuous laugh in would-be significance.But of this remark Campian took absolutely no notice. It was not thefirst time Bracebrydge had rendered himself offensive and quarrelsome inthe presence of ladies, and the inherent caddishness of this gallantworthy was best recognised by the silence of contempt.
It was late before the party reached camp--later still when they got tobed. All was well that ended well--so far, that is, for NestaCheriton's nervous system had received a shock, which rendered her moreor less out of sorts for some time, during which time, however,Bracebrydge and Fleming were recalled to Shalalai.