Our sleep was broken and disturbed by the noise of drums in the temple, and again and again we woke with a start, and thought that some one had come to call us out to be offered up before the hideous idols, and as often found that our alarm was only caused by a dream. By the middle of the night the noise outside ceased, and we both being thoroughly wearied out, slept soundly. All at once I was awaked by feeling cold, wet hands on my throat and mouth, and struggled to free myself and shout out; while Bill, roused by my struggles, grunted out, “What’s up?”
A voice said, “No make bobbery. Be plenty quiet. Me be Calla come make good for you.”
Evidently some one was watching, for we heard people outside speaking, and the noise of the gate being unbarred. While this was doing, Calla stole noiselessly away; and when one of the priests of the temple came in, bearing a great, flaming torch of palm leaves, and searched about the cave, he could only find me and Bill; so, giving us a couple of kicks apiece, he went back and fastened the gate again, evidently displeased at being disturbed.
As soon as he had gone and all was again quiet, Bill and I whispered together, wondering where Calla had come from, and where he had gone.
“I have it,” I said, almost forgetting the necessity for speaking low, but remembering myself in time. “Calla was wet; he must have come by the water.”
“How could he?” answered Bill. “There’s no passage there.”
“Never mind,” I said; “that’s where he came from. Let’s get down there, and see what we can.”
To get to the pool in the dark was easier said than done; but at last we found our way to the part of the cave where it was, which was dimly lighted by the hole in the side through which we had seen Bristol Bob’s island, and we groped about to try to find some way by which Calla could have got in.
Whilst we were thus engaged, we heard a long-drawn breath, and then a rippling in the pool, and then we distinguished a dark form coming to its shore.
“Hist! hist! me Calla,” he said as he emerged; and we hurried to him and asked what he wanted, and what was the news of Tom.
“Oh! Tom he live plenty good. But now one time make go. Dem other men no catch. Know eberyting. Me sabe dis hole no shut below—one time easy go and come—make people tink plenty ting.”
Evidently Calla had dived in from the outside, and if we could manage to dive as well, we might make our way out of our prison.
Calla proposed that we should dive down, and gave us the direction we were to swim in; and Bill, who was a capital swimmer and diver, according to European standards, slipped fearlessly into the pool, and taking a long breath sank below its surface.
The dive, however, was beyond his capabilities, for he soon reappeared puffing and blowing, and declared that he could not possibly manage it; and when he had rested a bit, he told me he had gone down and down into a sort of passage, where he could feel the rock on either side of him, when he felt as if he would burst, and could endure it no longer, so he had given himself a shove backwards, and returned to the surface.
“No be far,” said Calla; “see me go and come back one time;” and suiting the action to the word he glided down through the water, and in about four minutes returned with a handful of grass which he said he had plucked on the outside.
Bill, encouraged by this, made another attempt, but like ill success attended it; and as for me, I knew that if Bill could not dive out, it was hopeless to think of my being able to do it.
Calla at first seemed very much annoyed; but after a bit he said, “Me sabey,” and dived out of the cave, and soon returned bringing with him a line of cocoanut fibre, and made us understand that he would haul us through the passage.
To be dragged through an underground drain at the end of a rope was a nervous piece of work, but to remain where we were meant danger and captivity; whilst on the other side of the passage was freedom and comparative safety, if Calla was to be trusted, and we did not take long to make up our minds to consent to his proposal.
After a little discussion, Bill and I settled that he should be the first to go; and he promised, if he got through safe, to tie a peculiar knot in the end of the line to show me that he was all right.
We did not take long in securing the line to Bill, and then Calla took the other end in his teeth, and the two together disappeared below the surface. I waited and waited for Calla to come back, and the time seemed intensely long before he again was with me with the piece of line.
I anxiously examined the end for Bill’s knot, and when I felt it and learned that he was safely out of the cave, my joy was great, though I was still in a great fright as to what would happen to me. Calla secured the line round, me, so that I could not struggle, and telling me to keep my mouth shut, put me in the pool. I felt myself sinking, and then being dragged along, touching rock sometimes above, sometimes below, and sometimes on either side of me;............