CHAPTER XIX.
THE DROP OF WATER.
From fruitless genealogy he turned to the further consideration of hissupplies. He wanted water, and in a dungeon surrounded by lime-stonewalls and founded upon a rock, it seemed likely he would continue towant it. But at the farthest corner, just where the roof approachedmost closely to the floor, Hugh John could hear a _pat_, _pat_ atregularly recurring intervals. He put his hand forward into thedarkness, and immediately a large drop of water fell on the back ofit. He set his tongue to it, and it tasted cool and good after thefustiness of the woollen gag.
Hugh John thrust forward his hand again, palm upwards this time, andwas rewarded by finding that every time he counted ten slowly a largedrop, like those in the van of a thunder storm, splashed into thehollow. It was tedious work, but then a dungeon is a slow place, andhe had plenty of time. He crawled forward to be nearer to the sourceof supplies, and while trying to insinuate his head sidewaysunderneath like a dog at a spout, to catch the drop in his mouthwithout the intervention of a warm hand, he felt that his knee waswet. He had inadvertently placed it in a small natural basin intowhich the drop had been falling for ages. Hugh John set his lips toit, and never did even soda-water-and-milk, that nectar of the meagreand uncritical gods of boyhood, taste sweeter or more refreshing.After he had taken a good solid drink he cleaned the sand from thebottom carefully, and there, ready to his hand, was a stone cuphollowed out of a projecting piece of the rock on which the castle wasbuilt. This well-anchored drinking-cup was shaped like thepecten-shell of pilgrimage, and set with the broad fluted end towardshim.
Thus fortified with meat and drink, for he had devoured the first ofhis rat-poison squares, or rather bolted it like a pill, GeneralNapoleon sat down to reckon up his resources. He found himself inpossession of some ten feet of fairly good cord, which had evidentlybeen used for bringing cattle to the fatal Black Sheds of butcherDonnan. The prisoner carefully worked out all the knots, in order toget as much length as possible. He did not, indeed, see how such athing could help him to escape, but that was not his business, for inthe authorities a rope was always conveyed into the cell of the piningcaptive, generally in an enormous pie.
Hugh John felt that he was indeed a pining captive, but it was the pieand not the rope he pined for. His dungeon was downstairs, and he didnot see how a rope could possibly help him to get out, unless therewas somebody at the top of the bottle ready to haul him up.
He tried his voice again, and made the castle ring in vain. Alas! onlythe echoes came back, the pert jackdaws cried out insolently far abovehim and mocked him in a clamorous crowd from the ruined gables.
Then his mind went off all of itself to the pleasant dining-room ofthe house of Windy Standard, where Prissy and Sir Toady Lion wouldeven now be sitting down to tea. He could smell the nice refreshingbouquet of the hot china pot as Janet Sheepshanks poured the tea intothe cups in a golden brown jet, and then "doused" in the cream with aliberal hand.
"I declare I could drink up the whole tea-pot full without everstopping," said Hugh John aloud, and then started at the sound of hisown voice.
He waited as long as possible, and then ate the second of his squaresof bread. Then he drank the mouthful of water which had gathered inthe stone shell. While he was in there underneath the dungeon eaves,he put out his hand to feel how far off the wall was. He expectedeasily to reach it, but in this he failed entirely. His hand wasmerely stretched out into space, while the drop fell upon his head,and then upon his neck, as he leaned farther and farther over in hisefforts to find a boundary wall.
He had noticed from the first that the floor immediately beneath thecup was quite dry all round, but it had not occurred to him beforethat if the drop fell constantly and regularly the basin must overflowin some direction. Hugh John was not logical. It is true that he likedfinding out things by his five senses, but then that is a verydifferent affair. Sammy Carter tried to argue with him sometimes, andmake matters clear to him by pure reason. The first time Hugh Johnusually told him to "shut it." The second he simply hammered thelogician.
Finally, to solve the mystery, Hugh John crawled completely over hisdrinking fountain and kneeled in the damp sand at the back of thebasin. Still he could discover no wall. Next, he put his hand forwardas far as it would reach out, and--he _could feel no floor_.
Very gingerly he put his foot over the edge, and at once found himselfon the top step of a steep, narrow, and exceedingly uneven stair. Theexplorer's heart beat fast within him. He knew what it was now that hehad found--a secret passage, perhaps ending in an enchanted cave;perhaps (who knew) in a pirate's den. He thought of Nipper Donnan'slast words about the beast as big as a calf which his father had seengoing down into the dungeon. It was a lie, of course; it must be,because Nipper Donnan said it; but still it was certainly very darkand dismal down there.
Hugh John listened with his ear pointed down the stair, and his mouthopen. He certainly did hear a low, rushing, hissing sound, which mightbe the Edam water surrounding the old tower, or--the breathing of theBlack Beast.
If Hugh John had had even Toady Lion with him, he would have felt nofears; but to be alone in silence and darkness is fitted to shakestronger nerves than those of a twelve-year-old boy. It was gettinglate, as he knew by the craving ache in his stomach, and also by thegradual dusking of the hole twelve feet above his head, through whosenarrow throat he had been let down in the forenoon.
* * * * *
Now at first the Smoutchy boys had not meant to leave Hugh John in thedungeon all night, but only to give him a thorough fright for hishardihood in daring to attack their citadel. But Nipper Donnan'snatural resolution was ever towards cruelty of all sorts, and it wasturned to adamant upon discovering that Donald, the captured hostageand original cause of conflict, had in some mysterious way escaped.
This unexpected success of the attacking party he attributed, ofcourse, to Hugh John, whom, in spite of his youth, he well knew to bethe leading spirit. Sir Toady Lion was never so much as suspected--afact which would have pleased that doughty warrior but little had heknown it.
In the afternoon Nipper had gone to Halkirk Tryst to bring home twobullocks, which Butcher Donnan had bought there the day before; buthis father becoming involved in some critical cattle-dealingtransaction, for which he was unable to obtain satisfaction in cash,resolved that Nipper should wait till the next day, when he hoped tobe able to accompany him home in person. So engrossed was Nipper withthe freaks of the fair, the Aunt-Sallies, the shooting-galleries, andmiscellaneous side-shows and ghost illusions, that he quite forgot allabout our hero immured in the dungeon of the Castle of Windy Standard.Even had he remembered, he would certainly have said to himself thatsome of the other boys would be sure to go and let him out (for whichinterference with his privileges he would assuredly punch their headsto-morrow!)--and that in any case it served the beggar right.
Probably, however, his father (had Nipper thought fit to mention thematter to him), would have taken quite a different view of thesituation; for the butcher, with all his detestation of the owner ofthe Windy Standard estate, held Mr. Picton Smith in a wholesome awewhich almost amounted to reverence.
So it came about that none approached the castle all that afternoon;for the boys of Nipper's band were afraid to venture upon the castleisland in the absence of their redoubtable chief, while the servantsof Windy Standard House sought for the vanished in quite otherdirections, being led astray by the innocent assertions of Toady Lion,who had last seen Hugh John defending himself gallantly againstoverwhelming numbers in the corner of the field nearest to the town,and at least half a mile as the crow flies from the castle on theisland.