The Castaways of the Flag Page 10

  All went back into the cave, but not to sleep. How could they sleep? First one, and then another went out, watched, listened through the rippling of the tide, and then came back and sat down again without saying a word.

  It was the most sorrowful, heart-breaking night of all that Captain Gould and his company had passed upon this deserted coast.

  About two o'clock in the morning, the sky, which had been brilliant with stars until then, began to be overcast. The breeze was now in the north, and the clouds from that quarter gathered overhead. Not yet very thick, they chased each other with ever increasing speed, and east and west of the cliff the sea must certainly be rough.

  It was the time when the flood brought up on to the beach the rollers of the rising tide.

  Just at this moment Mrs. Wolston got up, and before she could be stopped she rushed out of the cave in delirium, shrieking:

  "My child! My child!"

  Force had to be used to get her back again. James, who had caught his wife up, took her in his arms and carried her back, more dead than alive.

  The unhappy mother remained stretched out on the heap of kelp where Bob usually slept by her side. Jenny and Dolly tried to bring her round, but it was only after great efforts on their part that she recovered consciousness.

  Throughout the remainder of the night the wind moaned incessantly round the top of the cliff. A score of times the men searched all over the shore, fearing always that the incoming tide might lay a little corpse upon the sand.

  But there was nothing, nothing! Could the child have been carried out to sea by the waves?

  About four o'clock when the ebb tide was just setting in after the slack, light appeared in the east.

  At this moment Fritz, who was leaning against the back of the cave, thought he heard a kind of cry behind the wall. He listened, and fearing that he might be mistaken, went up to the captain.

  "Come with me!" he said.

  Without knowing, without even asking what Fritz wanted, Captain Gould went with him.

  "Listen!" said Fritz.

  Captain Gould listened intently.

  "I can hear a bird's cry," he said.

  "Yes, a bird's cry!" Fritz declared.

  "Then there is a hollow behind the wall."

  "There must be; and perhaps a passage communicating with the outside; how else is it to be explained?"

  "You are right, Fritz!"

  John Block was told. He put his ear against the wall, and said positively:

  "It's the albatross's cry: I recognise it."

  "And if the albatross is there," said Fritz, "little Bob must be there too."

  '' But how could they both have got in?" the captain asked.

  '' That we will find out,'' John Block replied.

  Frank and Jenny and Dolly were now told. James and his wife recovered a little hope.

  '' He is there! He is there!'' Susan said over and over again.

  John Block had lighted one of the thick candles. That the albatross was behind the wall nobody could doubt, for its cry continued to be heard.

  But just before looking to see if it had slipped in by some opening outside, it was necessary to make sure that the back wall had no orifice.

  Candle in hand, the boatswain began to examine this wall.

  John Block could only see on its surface a few fissures which were too narrow for the albatross or Bob to get through. But at the bottom a hole, twenty to twenty-five inches wide, was hollowed out in the ground, a hole big enough to take the bird and the child.

  Meantime, however, the albatross's cry had ceased, and all were afraid that Captain Gould, the boatswain, and Fritz must have been mistaken.

  Then Jenny took John Block's place, and stooping down level with the hole, she called the bird several times. The albatross knew her voice as well as it knew her caress.

  A cry answered her, and almost immediately the bird came out through the hole.

  "Bob! Bob!'' Jenny called again.

  The child did not answer, did not appear. Was he not with the bird behind the wall? His mother could not restrain a cry of despair.

  '' Wait!'' said the boatswain.

  He crouched down and enlarged the hole, throwing the sand out behind him. In a few minutes he had made the hole large enough for him to squeeze into it.

  A minute later he brought out little Bob, who had fainted, but who was not long in recovering consciousness under his mother's kisses.

  CHAPTER IX - BOB FOUND

  IT took Mrs. Wolston some time to recover from her terrible shock. But Bob was restored to her, and that comforted her. It appeared that Bob, playing with the albatross, had followed it to the back of the cave. The bird made its way in through the narrow passage, and Bob went after it. A dark excavation opened out at the end, and when the little fellow wanted to get out of this he found that he could not. At first he called, but his calls were not heard. Then he lost consciousness, and nobody knows what might have happened if by the luckiest chance Fritz had not happened to hear the cry of the albatross.

  "Well," said the boatswain, "now that Bob is in his mother's arms again, everything is for the best. Thanks to him we have discovered another cave. It is true we haven't any use to put it to. The first one was enough for us, and as a matter of fact we ask nothing better than to get away from that one."

  "But I want to find out how far it runs back," Captain Gould remarked.

  "Right to the other side of the cliff, do you fancy, captain?"

  "Who can tell, Block?"

  "All right,'' the boatswain answered. '' But even supposing it does run through the cliff, what shall we find on the other side? Sand, rocks, creeks, promontories, and as much green stuff as I can cover with my hat.''

  "That's very likely," Fritz replied. "But none the less we must look."

  '' We'll look, Mr. Fritz; we'll look. Looking costs nothing, as the saying is."

  The investigation might have such priceless results that it had to be undertaken without delay.

  The captain, Fritz, and Frank went back to the end of the cave. The boatswain walked behind them, armed with several big candles. To make the way easier, those in front enlarged the aperture by removing some more of the stones which had fallen into it.

  A quarter of an hour sufficed to make the opening large enough. None of them had put on flesh since they had landed. Only the boatswain had not lost weight since he had left the Flag.

  When they had all got through, the candles gave sufficient light for them to examine this second excavation.

  It was deeper than the first one, but much narrower, a hundred feet or so long, ten or twelve feet in diameter, and about the same height. It was possible that other passages branched off from it and formed a kind of labyrinth inside the massive cliff. Captain Gould wondered whether one of these branches might not perhaps lead, if not to the top of the cliff, at any rate beyond the bluff or the bastion.

  When Captain Gould urged this point again John Block replied:

  "It certainly is possible. Who knows whether we shan't reach the top through the inside, although we couldn't do so outside?"

  When they had gone some fifty feet through this passage, which gradually got narrower, Captain Gould, the boatswain, and Fritz came to a wall of rock before which they were obliged to stop.

  John Block passed the light all over its surface from the ground to the vault, but found only narrow fissures into which the hand could not be put. So there was no more hope of penetrating further through the solid mass.

  Nor did the side walls of the passage disclose any aperture. This second excavation beyond the first cave was the sole discovery resulting from the incident.

  "Well," said Captain Gould, "it's not by this way that we shall get through the cliff."

  "Nor over it," added the boatswain.

  And, having made sure of that, they could do nothing but go back.

  As a matter of fact, although it was rather disappointing not to find any inner passage, nobody bad though
t it likely.

  And yet when Captain Gould and John Block and Fritz got back, they had a feeling of being more confined than ever on this shore.

  During the next few days the weather, very fine hitherto, showed signs of changing. Light clouds, which soon grew thicker, obscured the blue sky, blown over the plateau above by a northerly breeze which, in the evening of the 22nd of January, strengthened until it blew a gale.

  Coming from that quarter, the wind was no menace to Turtle Bay. Sheltered by the cliff, the bay was not exposed to the breakers, as it had been in the violent storm which had caused the destruction of the boat. The sea would remain calm along the shore, not getting the force of the wind nearer than a good mile and a half from the coast. Even if a hurricane burst there would be nothing to fear.

  A heavy thunderstorm broke on the night of the 22nd. About one o'clock in the morning everybody was awakened suddenly by a crash of thunder that made a more appalling noise than a cannon fired at the mouth of the cave could have done.

  Fritz, Frank, and the boatswain sprang from their corners, and rushed to the door.

  "The lightning struck quite close by,"- said Frank.

  "At the crest of the cliff above us, most likely," replied John Block, going a few steps outside.

  Susan and Dolly, who were always greatly affected by thunderstorms, as many people of nervous temperament are, had followed Jenny outside the cave.

  "Well?'' Dolly enquired.

  "There is no danger, Dolly, dear," Frank answered. "Go back and close your eyes and ears."

  But Jenny was just saying to her husband, who had come up to her:

  "What a smell of smoke, Fritz!"

  "That's not surprising," said the boatswain. "There is the fire—over there."

  "Where?" Captain Gould asked sharply.

  "On that heap of sea-weed at the foot of the cliff."

  The lightning had set fire to the heap of dry weed. In a few minutes the flames had spread to the mass of sea-weeds collected at the base of the cliff. It burned up like straw, crackling in the breeze, eddying about like will-of-the-wisps, and spreading an acrid smoke over the whole beach.

  Fortunately, the entrance to the cave was clear, and the fire could not reach it.

  "That's our reserve burning!" John Block exclaimed.

  "Can't we save any of it?" said Fritz.

  "I fear not!" Captain Gould replied.

  The flames spread so rapidly that it was impossible to remove to safety the heaps which furnished the only fuel the shipwrecked people had.

  True, the quantity deposited by the sea was inexhaustible. The stuff would continue to be thrown up, but it would take a long time for such a quantity to accumulate. The incoming tide deposited a few armfuls twice in every twenty-four hours. What had lain on the beach was the harvest of many years. And who could say that, in the few weeks remaining before the rainy season, the tide would have thrown up enough for the winter's need?

  In less than a quarter of an hour the line of fire had ringed the whole circle of the shore, and except for a few heaps along the promontory there was nothing left.

  This fresh hammer-blow of evil fortune aggravated the situation, already so disturbing.

  '' Upon my word, it's no go!"

  And coming from the lips of the boatswain, who was always so confident, the words had exceptional significance.

  But they would not make the walls of the prison fall down, to allow the prisoners to escape!

  Next morning the weather, though no longer thundery, was still unsettled, and the north wind continued to sweep the plateau fiercely.

  Their first business was to see whether the sea-weeds piled up along the bastion had been spared by the fire. They had been partially. The men brought back in their arms enough to last for a week, exclusive of what the tides would bring up every day.

  While the wind continued to blow from the north these floating masses would, of course, be carried to sea.

  But as soon as it veered round to the south again, the harvest could be gathered more abundantly.

  Nevertheless, Captain Gould pointed out that some precautions would have to be taken for the future.

  "Quite right, captain," John Block answered; "it would be a good plan to put what is left of the sea-weed under cover, in case we have to winter here."

  "Why not store it in the second cave that we have just discovered?" Fritz suggested.

  That seemed to be expressly indicated, and that day, before noon, Fritz resolved to go back into the cave, in order to examine its nature and arrangements inside. Provided with a candle, he crept through the narrow opening communicating between the two caves. Who could say if the second one had not some means of egress beyond the mass of rock?

  But just as he reached the far end of the long passage, Fritz felt a fresher breath of air, and at the same moment his ear detected a continual whistling sound.

  "Wind!" he muttered. "That's wind!"

  He put his face near the wall, and his hand found several fissures in it.

  "Wind!" he said again. "It certainly is wind! It gets in here when it blows from the north. So there is a passage, either on the side or at the top of the cliff! But then, on this side, it would mean that there is a communication with the northern flank of the cliff!''

  Just at that moment the candle which Fritz was passing along the wall went out suddenly, in a stronger draught blowing through one of the fissures.

  Fritz did not wait for anything more. He was convinced. If one got through this wall one would have free access to the outside!

  To crawl back to the cave where all were waiting for him, to tell them of his discovery, to take them back again with him, and make sure that he was right, was only the work of minutes.

  In a few minutes more Fritz, followed by Captain Gould, John Block, and James, went from the first cave into the second. They lighted their way by candles which, on this occasion, they were careful not to put too near the wall at the far end.

  Fritz was not mistaken. Fresh air was blowing freely through the passage.

  Then the boatswain, passing the light along the level of the ground, noticed that the passage was closed only by a heap of stones which had no doubt fallen right down a kind of natural shaft.

  "The door!" he exclaimed. "There's the door! And no need of a key to open it with! Ah, captain, you were in the right of it after all!"

  "Get on to it! Get on to it!" was all Captain Gould's reply.

  It was easy to clear the passage of the obstructing stones. They passed them from hand to hand, quite a lot of them, for the heap was five or six feet above the ground level. As the work proceeded the current of air became stronger. There most certainly was a sort of gorge carved out inside the mass of the rock.

  A quarter of an hour was enough to clear the passage entirely.

  Fritz was the first through, and, followed by the others, he went ten or twelve steps up a very steep slope, dimly lighted.

  There was no vertical shaft. A gorge, five or six feet wide and open to the sky, wound between two walls which rose to an immense height, and a strip of blue sky formed its ceiling. It was down this gorge the wind rushed, to creep through the fissures in the wall at the end of the passage.

  And so the cliff was rent right through! But where did the rift open out?

  They could not tell until they had reached the far end of it, supposing they found it possible to do so.

  But for all that they stood like prisoners before whom the gaol doors have just opened!

  It was barely eight o'clock, and there was plenty of time. They did not even discuss the question of sending Fritz or the boatswain on in advance to explore. Everyone wanted to go up the passage at once, without losing a minute.

  "But we must take some provisions," Jenny said. "Who can tell whether we shall not be away longer than we think?"

  "Besides," Fritz added, "have we any idea where we are going?"

  "Outside," the boatswain replied.

  The simple word
, so exactly expressing the general sentiment, answered everything.

  But Captain Gould insisted that they should have breakfast first, also that they should take provisions for several days with them, in case they should be delayed.