Much good the discovery did us, I reflected bitterly. A thousand, two, three thousand yards—in that thin atmosphere it was impossible to gauge distances accurately—of pathless mountain lay between us and the idol. Indeed, I hardly gave the solving of the riddle more than a passing thought now; for my mind was engaged in the more urgent problem of how to extricate Marjorie in safety from the perilous pass to which I had brought her.
We could not remain on the rock indefinitely; that much was clear to me. Already, under the influence of the sun's rays beating down ever more fiercely on that exposed ledge, the pangs of thirst were making themselves felt. It was Marjorie who mentioned it first. She asked if we could find water anywhere. At our level I thought it was doubtful and told her so. Marjorie Garth, I discovered, was a girl who liked to be told the truth.
"What about that cave beyond the pillar?" she asked, leaning across me to point at the low opening I had remarked in the back wall of our ledge.
"While it's light," I answered, "one of us must remain and guard the path. I don't know what their inaction means.... but we must be prepared for anything. Why don't you have a look at the cave? But go carefully; the roof seems very low."
I gave her my hand and helped her up. She stepped across me, turned round and gave me a little smile, then bending down disappeared into the cave opening. And I, with my automatic in my hand, while I keenly watched the two little ribands of path below me, racked my brains to find a way out of our impasse.
I would try and hold out till dark. If, by then, the Naomi had not come, we would endeavour, under cover of the night, to reach our cave on the shore and wait for her. If, in the meantime, we were overpowered, I would capitulate and tell Clubfoot all I knew. In the meantime, I should have to abandon my hunt for the treasure.
A faint sound behind me made me start. It was shrill but distant. I listened. I heard it again and this time I recognised the call.
"Coo.... eee!"
It was Marjorie calling from the interior of the cave. With a quick glance at the path below, I scrambled to my feet. The entrance to the cave was not more than four feet high and I had to bend almost double to enter. Within, for a few feet from the opening there was enough light to see that the floor, brittle and crumbly, sloped down into a dark void. I felt my way cautiously along the side of the cave foot by foot, stooping low to avoid the roof and seeing nothing. Then from somewhere far below, as it seemed at my very feet, the girl's cry went forth again:
"Coo.... eee!"
I stopped.
"Right!" I shouted. "Where are you?"
From far below the cry came up, faint and a little quavery.
"Down here in the dark and I don't like it! But I've found water! There are some steps cut in the rock!"
The lure of the water was irresistible. I glanced at the path, above which hung a trembling curtain of heat. It was still deserted. I judged that I might safely risk a quick dash into the cave to quench my burning thirst.
The cave narrowed as it receded into the rock, and presently my foot shot out into space. I groped a bit and struck a shallow step. Then I suddenly remembered that I had a stump of candle in my pocket. I had picked it up on the previous evening when we had been loading the launch. An old campaigner never leaves candle ends lying about. They are apt to come in useful—as witness this case.
So I struck a match and lit my bit of candle and peered down. The feeble ray only illuminated a black void, a dark narrow shaft; but I saw that the steps descended almost sheer down one side. I was now able to stand erect, so clutching the side of the rock with one hand and bearing my lighted candle in the other, I started the descent. And I counted as I went.
I had counted fourteen steps when suddenly the ground appeared to give way beneath my feet. I clutched wildly at the side of the rock, my hand slipped over the smooth surface, and with a soft rumble the whole of the steps seemed to slide away. My light was extinguished and in a shower of crumbling rock and a cloud of acrid dust, I slithered headlong into the black shaft.
Well, I was blown sky-high once by a shell in France and I remember struggling madly with mind and body, as it seemed when I looked back on the incident afterwards, against the invincible force which bore me upwards until I gave up the struggle.... and never even remembered the subsequent bump. But in this case, though I fought all the way to check my headlong fall, I never lost consciousness, and I felt in every bone of my body the terrific jar I received on landing on my back on a hard, rocky floor.
Some lingering echo told me that the girl had screamed, though I don't think I really heard her voice. But the next thing I was aware of was a little whimpering sound. Then from the darkness the girl's voice said:
"Oh, Desmond!"
And I heard a little sob.
I felt dazed and shaken, but I staggered to my feet.
"Marjorie!" I called, "where are you? I'm all right. There's no damage done...."
I heard a footstep, then a hand was thrust into mine, a small warm hand that entwined its fingers in mine and wrung them hard. Then, scarcely realising what I was doing or why I did it, I drew her to me and put my arms about her, felt the caress of her soft hair against my cheek as her head rested on my shoulder. And so we remained a minute or more in that inky darkness because we were glad to have found one another again.
By some miracle I had kept the candle in my hand all through my fall. When presently Marjorie drew away from me, I fished out my matches and rekindled the stump.
We found ourselves standing in a long, narrow chamber with a roof which, low to start with, sloped down until it stood not more than four feet from the floor. The place smelt damp and musty and here and there the walls gleamed wet where the light of the candle struck them. Along one side of the cave was a kind of stone slab.
Just behind where we stood was the narrow shaft by which we had descended, at its foot a jumble of débris. I raised the candle aloft and strained my eyes to see up the shaft. I stared into blackness; but I noted that where the stairs had been cut there now remained nothing but the sheer overhanging wall of rock. I took Marjorie's arm and pointed to the wet glistening on the walls.
"Let's drink first!" I said.
My voice sounded strangely hollow in the vaulted place. I turned and led her to the rock. The water was dead cold and delightfully fresh to the touch. The girl put her lips to the wall and drank. I followed her example. She finished before I was through; for it seemed to me that the sun on that ledge outside had drained every drop of moisture out of my system and I drank and drank again. But suddenly she plucked my sleeve and whispered in an awed voice:
"What.... What is that?"
She pointed at the stone slab of which I have spoken. It resembled a rough altar built up of big stones laid together like an Irish wall. And on it lay three or four long and shrunken-looking packets. The rays of my candle picked out a round substance that gleamed brightly through the wrappings of the nearest of these objects.
Even before I stepped up to the stone table to get a closer inspection I knew what they were. Here lay the bones of that forgotten race which had once inhabited Cock Island, the sculptors of the idol which had frowned at us across the valley. We had blundered into one of the island burial-places scooped out of the heart of the rock. The high light which my candle had caught up came from a hip-bone which had worn its way through the bark envelope. The girl saw it, recognised it for what it was, and shrank away.
"Let's get away quickly from here!" said Marjorie, nervously. "These.... these mummies frighten me dreadfully. Desmond, take me out into the sunshine again."
Her voice pleaded piteously and it went to my heart. For I was wondering....
"Good Lord!" I said, "they're naught but a handful of dust. There's nothing to be frightened of! Come and sit at the bottom of the shaft while I see about finding a way up!"
I sat her down on a pile of débris and gave her the candle to hold while, mounting as high as I could on the heaped-up rubbish, I sought for a means of scaling the shaft. But the face of the rock, from which the stairs had broken away under my weight, was now overhanging and so high that I could not see the top. The rest of the shaft was smooth and hard, and try as I would I could not get hand or foot-hold anywhere.
My initial surmise had proved all too correct. To return by the way we had come was impossible. To reach the top we should require to be hauled up by a rope. But, in order not to frighten the girl, I kept on trying to find a way to clamber aloft. And all the time I was thinking that, failing any other egress, those blackened mummies were to be our companions until....
At last, with torn hands and slashed boots, I climbed down again to where she sat.
"No good," I said.
She stared at me in a dazed sort of way.
"Oh," she exclaimed wearily, "there must be a way up! We can't stay here!"
She sprang to her feet and clambered up on the débris, peering aloft. I reached up and took her hand.
"We'll explore the cave and see if there's another way out," I said soothingly.
Marjorie turned and looked down on me.
"And if there isn't...." she began. "Oh," she added hastily, "don't think me a coward, but I have such a horror of shut-in places. And you've altered so much since we came down here, your voice is so grave, it scares me. Oh, Desmond, we're not caught here for good....!"
I smiled up at her.
"How you run on!" I said as cheerfully as I could. "God bless my soul, we're not at the end of our tether yet. There's certain to be another exit at the far end of the cave...."
There was an opening of sorts; for one of the first things I had done on landing in the subterranean chamber was to see what means of escape it afforded other than that by which we had entered. But it was a slit, a mere air-hole in the living rock which, to judge by a cursory examination, would scarcely afford passage for a dog.
I have been in some tight corners in my time and it has always seemed to me that the most frightening thing about death is not the prospect of death itself, but rather the realisation—and it usually comes upon one suddenly and without warning—of the inexorability of fate, the utter impotence of man to escape his destiny. And very soon after crashing down into the cave I had understood that our chances of escape were reduced almost to the vanishing-point.
We had no food, only water and air. Death by slow starvation awaited us unless we could attract attention and secure help. Clubfoot and his people might be willing enough, in their own interest, to rescue us. But what chance had we, immured in the bowels of the earth as we were, of letting him know where we were? And how was Garth to find us when the Naomi came back?
Marjorie had risen to her feet. Her face was a little flushed and there was a glitter of excitement in her eyes.
"That's it!" she cried, "there must, of course, be another way out!"
............