Harry Escombe Part 2

Now, although Harry was only an articled pupil, he knew quite enough about railway engineering to be perfectly well aware that the elaborate measurements which Butler had instructed him to take were absolutely unnecessary, the accurate determination of the width at the top--where a bridge would eventually have to be thrown across--being all that was really required. Yet he made no demur, for he had already seen that it would be possible to take as many measurements as might be required, with absolute accuracy and ease, by the execution of about a quarter of an hour's preliminary surveying. But when, on the following morning, he commenced this bit of preliminary work, Butler rushed out of his tent and interrupted him.

"What are you doing?" he harshly demanded. "Have you forgotten that I ordered you to measure very carefully the _quebrada_ this morning, before doing anything else?"

"No, sir," answered Harry, "I have not forgotten. I am doing it now, or, rather, doing the necessary preliminary work."

"Doing the necessary preliminary work?" echoed Butler. "What do you mean? I don't understand you."

"Then permit me to explain," said Harry suavely. "I have ascertained that, by placing the theodolite over that peg yonder,"--pointing to a newly driven peg some four hundred feet away to the left--"I shall be able to get an uninterrupted view of the _quebrada_ from top to bottom, and, by taking a series of vertical and horizontal angles from the top edge, can measure the contour of the two sides, at the point crossed by the survey line, with the nicest accuracy."

"How do you mean?" demanded Butler.

Harry proceeded to elaborate his explanation, patiently describing each step of the intended operation, and making it perfectly clear that the elaborate series of unnecessary measurements demanded could be secured with the most beautiful precision.

"But," objected Butler, "when you have taken all those angles you will have done only part of the work; you will still have to calculate the length of the vertical and horizontal lines subtended by them--"

"A matter of about half an hour's work!" interjected Harry.

"Possibly," agreed Butler. "But," he continued, "I do not like your plan at all; I do not approve of it; it is amateurish and theoretical, and I won't have it. A much simpler and more practical way will be for you to go down the _quebrada_ at the end of a rope, measuring as you go."

"That is one way certainly," a.s.sented Harry; "but, with all submission, Mr Butler, I venture to think that it will not be nearly so accurate as mine. Besides, consider the danger. If the rope should happen to be cut in its pa.s.sage over the sharp edge of that rock--"

"Look here," interrupted Butler, "if you are afraid, you had better say so, and I will do the work myself. But I should like you to understand that timid people are of no use to me."

The taunt was unjust, for Harry was not afraid; but he was convinced that his own plan was far and away the more expeditious and the more accurate, also it involved absolutely no danger at all; while it was patent to even the dullest comprehension that there was a distinct element of danger attaching to the other, inasmuch as that if anything should happen to the rope, the person suspended by it must inevitably be precipitated to the bottom, where a mountain stream roared as it leaped and boiled and foamed over a bed of enormous boulders.

Had Es...o...b.. been ten years older than he actually was he would probably not have hesitated--while disclaiming anything in the nature of cowardice--to express very strongly the opinion that where there were two methods of executing a certain task, one of them perfectly safe, and the other seriously imperilling a human life, it was the imperative duty of the person with whom the decision rested to select the safer method of the two, particularly when that method offered equally satisfactory results with the other. But, being merely a lad, and as yet scarcely certain of himself, remembering also that his future prospects were absolutely at Butler's mercy, to make or mar as he pleased, Harry contented himself with a disclaimer of any such feeling as fear, and expressed his readiness to perform the task in any manner which Butler might choose to approve. At the same time he confessed his inability to understand precisely how the required measurements were to be taken, and requested instructions.

"Why," explained Butler impatiently, "the thing is surely simple enough for a baby to understand. You will be lowered over the cliff edge and let down the cliff face exactly five feet at a time. As it happens to be absolutely calm, the rope by which you are to be lowered will hang accurately plumb; all that you will have to do, therefore, will be to measure the distance from your rope to the face of the rock, at every five feet of drop, and you will then have the particulars necessary to plot a contour of the cliff face, from top to bottom. You will do this on both sides of the _quebrada_, and then measure the width across at the top, which will enable us to produce a perfectly correct section of the gorge."

"But how am I to measure the distance from the rope to the cliff face?"

demanded Harry. "For, as you will have observed, sir, the rock overhangs at the top, and the gorge widens considerably as it descends."

"You can do your measuring with a ranging-rod," answered Butler tersely; "and if one is not long enough, tie two together."

"Even so," persisted Harry, "I fear I shall not be able to manage--"

"Will you, or will you not, do as you are told?" snapped Butler. "If you cannot manage with two rods, I will devise some other plan."

"Very well, sir," said Harry. "If you are quite determined to send me over the cliff, I am ready to go. What rope is it your pleasure that I shall use?"

"Take the tent ropes," ordered Butler. "You will have an ample quant.i.ty if you join them all together. Make a seat for yourself in the end, and then mark off the rest of the rope into five-foot lengths, so that we may know exactly how much to pay out between the measurements. Then lash two ranging-rods together, and you will find that you will manage splendidly."

Harry had his doubts, for to his own mind the tent ropes seemed none too strong for such a purpose. Moreover, the clips upon them would render the paying out over the cliff edge exceedingly awkward; still, since it seemed that the choice lay between risking his life and ruining his professional prospects, he chose the former, and set about making his preparations for what he could not help regarding as a distinctly hazardous experiment. These did not occupy him very long, and in about twenty minutes he was standing at the cliff edge, with a padded bight of the rope about his body, and the two joined ranging-rods in his hand, quite ready to be lowered down the face. Then two peons whom he had specially selected for the task, drew in the slack of the rope, pa.s.sed a complete turn of it round an iron bar driven deep into a rock crevice, and waited for the command of a third who now laid himself p.r.o.ne on the ground, with his head projecting over the edge of the cliff, to watch and regulate the descent. Then Harry, fully realising, perhaps for the first time, the perilous nature of the enterprise, laid himself down and carefully lowered himself over the rocky edge.

"Lower gently, brothers!" ordered the man who was supervising the operation, and the rope was carefully eased away until the first five- foot mark reached the cliff edge, while Butler, who now also began at last to recognise and appreciate the ghastly peril to which his obstinacy had consigned a fellow creature, moved off to a point about a hundred yards distant, from which he could watch the entire descent.

And he no sooner reached it than he perceived that Harry's objections to the plan were well grounded, and that, even with the two joined rods, it would be impossible for the lad to take the required measurements over more than the first quarter of the depth. This being the case, it was obviously his duty at once to put a stop to so dangerous an attempt, especially as he knew perfectly well that it was as unnecessary as it was dangerous; but to do this would have been tantamount to confessing that he had made a mistake, and this his nature was too mean and petty to permit, so he simply sat down and watched in an ever-growing fever of anxiety lest anything untoward should happen for which he could be blamed.

Meanwhile, at the very first stoppage, Harry began to experience some of the difficulties that beset him in the task which he had undertaken.

Despite the utmost care in lowering, the rope would persist in oscillating, very gently, it is true, but still sufficient to render it necessary to pause until the oscillation had ceased before attempting to take the measurement; also the torsion of the rope set up a slow revolving movement, so that, even when at length the oscillation ceased, it was only with difficulty that the correct measurement was taken and recorded in the book. This difficulty recurred as every additional five-foot length of rope was paid out, so that each measurement cost fully five minutes of precious time. Moreover, despite the padding of the rope, Harry soon began to find it cutting into his flesh so unpleasantly that he had grave doubts whether he would be able to endure it and hold out until the bottom, far below, should be reached.

At length, when about forty feet of rope had been very cautiously paid out, and some eight measurements taken, the peon who was superintending the operation of lowering was suddenly seen to stiffen his body, as though something out of the common had attracted his attention; he raised one hand as a sign to the other two to cease lowering, and gazed intently downward for several seconds. Then he signed for the lowering to be continued, and, to the astonishment of the others, wriggled himself back from the edge of the cliff until he had room to stand upright, when, scrambling hastily to his feet, he sprang to the two men who were lowering, and hissed between his set teeth:

"Lower! lower away as quickly and as steadily as you can, my brothers; the life of the young _Senor_ depends upon your speed and steadiness.

The rope has stranded--cut by the edge of the rock, most probably--and unless you can lower the _muchacho_ to the bottom ere it parts altogether, he will be dashed to pieces!"

Meanwhile Harry, hanging there swinging and revolving in the bight of the rope, was not a little astonished when he found himself being lowered without pause, save such momentary jerks as were occasioned by the pa.s.sage of the clips round the bar and over the cliff edge, and he instinctively glanced upward to see if he could discover what was wrong--for that something had gone amiss he felt tolerably certain. For a few seconds his eye sought vainly for an explanation, then his gaze was arrested by the sight of two severed ends of one strand of the rope standing out at a distance of about thirty feet above his head, and he knew!--knew that the strength of the slender rope had been decreased by one third, and that his life now depended upon the holding together of the two remaining strands!

Harry could see that those two remaining strands were stretched by his hanging weight to the utmost limit of their resistance, and he watched them with dull anxiety, as one in a dream, every moment expecting to see the yarns of which they were composed part one by one under the strain.

And the worst of it was that that strain was not a steady one, otherwise there might be some hope that the strands would withstand it long enough to permit him to reach the bottom of the _quebrada_; but at frequent intervals there occurred a couple of jerks--one as a clip pa.s.sed round the bar, and another as it slid over the cliff edge--and, of course, at every recurrence of the jerk the strain was momentarily increased to an enormous extent. And presently that which he feared happened, a more than usually severe jerk occurred, and one of the yarns in the remaining strands parted. Es...o...b.. dully wondered how far he still was from the bottom--a fearful distance, he believed--for he seemed to be cruelly close to the overhanging edge of the cliff, although he had been hanging suspended for a length of time that seemed to him more like hours than minutes. He did not dare to look down, for he had the feeling that if he removed his gaze from those straining and quivering strands for a single instant they would snap, and he would go plunging downward to destruction. Then, as he watched, another yarn parted, and another. A catastrophe was now inevitable, and the lad began to speculate curiously, and from a singularly impersonal point of view, what the sensation would be like when the last yarn had snapped. He had read somewhere that the sensation of falling from a great height was distinctly pleasurable; but what about the other, upon reaching the bottom? A quaint story came into his mind about an Irishman who was said to have fallen off the roof of a house, and who, upon being picked up, was asked whether he had been hurt by his fall, to which the man replied: "No, the fall didn't hurt me a bit, it was stoppin' so quick that did all the mischief!" The humour of the story was not very brilliant, yet somehow it seemed to Es...o...b.. at that moment to be ineffably amusing, and he laughed aloud at the quaintness of the conceit. And, as he did so, the remaining yarns of the second strand parted with a little jerk that thrilled him through and through, and he hung there suspended by a single strand, but still being lowered rapidly from above. His eyes were now fixed intently upon the unbroken strand, and he distinctly saw it stretching and straightening out under his weight, but, as it seemed to him, with inconceivable slowness. Then--to such a preternatural state of acuteness had his senses been wrought by the imminence and certainty of ghastly disaster--he saw the last strand slowly parting, not yarn by yarn but fibre by fibre, until, after what seemed to be a veritable eternity of suspense, the last fibre snapped, he heard a loud tw.a.n.g, and found himself floating--as it seemed to him-- very gently downward, so gently, indeed, that, as he was swung round, facing the rocky wall, he was able to note clearly and distinctly every inequality, every projection, every crack, every indentation in the face of the rock; nay, he even felt that, were it worth while to do so, he would have had time enough to make sketches of every one of them as they drifted slowly upward. The next thing of which he was conscious was a loud swis.h.i.+ng sound which rose even above the deafening brawl of water among rocks, that he now remembered with surprise had been thundering in his ears for--how many months--or years, was it? Then he became aware that he was somehow among leaves and branches; and again memory reproduced the scene upon which he had looked when, standing upon the cliff edge at a point from which he could command a view of the whole depth of the gorge, he had idly noted that, at the very bottom of it, a few inconsiderable shrubs or small trees, nourished by eternal showers of spray, grew here and there from interstices of the rock, and he realised that he had fallen into the heart of one of them. He contrived to grasp a fairly stout branch with each hand, and was much astonished when they bent and snapped like twigs as his body ploughed through the thick growth; but he knew that the force of his fall had been broken, and, for the first time since he had made the discovery of the severed strand, the hope came that, after all, he might emerge from this adventure with his life. Then he alighted--on his feet--on a great, moss-grown boulder, felt his legs double up and collapse under him, sank into a huddled heap upon the wet, slippery moss, shot off into the leaping, foaming water, and knew no more.

CHAPTER FOUR.

MAMA CACHAMA.

When young Es...o...b.. regained his senses it was night, or so he supposed, for all was darkness about him, save for such imperfect illumination as came from a small wood fire which flickered and crackled cheerfully in one corner of the apartment in which he found himself. The apartment!

Nay, it was far too large, much too s.p.a.cious in every dimension, to be a room in an ordinary house, and those walls--or as much as could be seen of them in the faint, ruddy glow of the firelight--were altogether too rough and rugged to have been fas.h.i.+oned by human hands, while the roof was so high that the flickering light of the flames was not strong enough to reach it. It was a cavern, without doubt, and Harry began to wonder vaguely by what means he had come there. For, upon awakening, his mind had been in a state of the most utter confusion, and it was not until he had lain patiently waiting for his ideas to arrange themselves, and had thereby come to the consciousness that he was aching in every bone and fibre of his body, while the latter was almost entirely swathed in bandages, that the recollection of his adventure returned to him.

Even then the memory of it was but a dreamy one, and indeed he did not feel at all certain that the entire incident was not a dream from beginning to end, and that he should not presently awake to find himself on the cot in his tent, with the cold, clear dawn peering in past the unfolded flap, and another day's arduous work before him. But he finally concluded that the fire upon which his eyes rested was too real, and, more especially, that his pain was too acute and insistent for him to be dreaming. Then he fell to wondering afresh how in the name of fortune he had found his unconscious way into that cave and upon the pallet which supported him.

The fire was the only thing in the cavern that was distinctly visible; certain objects there were here and there, a vague suggestion of which came and went with the rise and fall of the flame, but what they were Harry could not determine. There was, among other matters, an object on the far side of the fire, that looked not unlike a bundle of rags; but when Es...o...b.., in attempting to turn himself over into a more comfortable position, uttered an involuntary groan as a sharp twinge of pain shot through his anatomy, the bundle stirred, and instantly resolved itself into the quaintest figure of a little, old, bowed Indian woman that it is possible to picture. But, notwithstanding her extreme age and apparent decrepitude, the extraordinary old creature displayed marvellous activity. In an instant she was on her feet and beside the pallet, peering eagerly and anxiously into Harry's wide-open eyes. The result of her inspection appeared to be satisfactory, for presently she turned away and, muttering to herself in a tongue which was quite incomprehensible to her patient, disappeared in the all-enveloping darkness, only to reappear a moment later with a small cup in her hand containing a draught of very dark brown, almost black, liquid of an exceedingly pungent but rather agreeable bitter taste, which she placed to his lips, and which the lad at once swallowed without demur. The effect of the draught was instantaneous, as it was marvellously stimulating and exhilarating; and it must also have possessed very remarkable tonic properties, for scarcely had Es...o...b.. swallowed it when a sensation of absolutely ravenous hunger a.s.sailed him.

"Ah!" he sighed, "that was good; I feel ever so much better now.

Mother," he continued in Spanish, "I feel hungry: can you find me something to eat?"

"Aha! you feel hungry, do you?" responded the old woman in the same language. "Good! I am prepared for that. Wait but a moment, _caro mio_, until I can heat the broth, and your hunger shall soon be satisfied." And with the birdlike briskness which characterised all her actions she moved away into the shadows, presently returning with three iron rods in her hand, which she dexterously arranged in the form of a tripod over the fire, and from which she suspended a small iron pot.

Then, taking a few dry sticks from a bundle heaped up near the fire, she broke them into short lengths, which she carefully introduced, one by one, here and there, into the flame, coaxing it into a brisk blaze which soon caused a most savoury and appetising steam to rise from the pot.

Next, from some hidden receptacle she produced a bowl and spoon, emptied the smoking contents of the pot into the former, and then, carefully propping her patient into a sitting position, proceeded to feed him.

The stew was delicious, to such an extent, indeed, that Harry felt constrained to compliment his hostess upon its composition and to ask of what it was made. He was much astonished--and also, it must be confessed, a little disgusted--when the old lady simply answered, _Lagarto_ (lizard). There was no doubt, however, that he had greatly enjoyed his meal, and felt distinctly the better for it; he therefore put his squeamishness on one side, and asked his companion to enlighten him as to the manner in which he came to be where he was.

"It is very simple," answered the old woman. "While my son Yupanqui was fis.h.i.+ng in the river, two days ago, he caught sight of something unusual lying at the edge of a sandbank, and upon paddling his _balsa_ to the spot, he found your insensible body lying stranded there, bruised and bleeding; so, like a sensible boy, he took you up and brought you hither as quickly as possible, in order that I might exercise my skill in the attempt to restore you to life. We managed to do so at last, between us; but you were _caduco_ (crazy), and could tell us nothing of yourself, for you spoke persistently in a language that we did not understand; so, as soon as it was seen that you would live, I busied myself in dressing your wounds and bruises, after which I prepared for you a certain medicine which, as I expected, threw you into a deep sleep, from which you have at length awakened in your right mind. And now you have but to lie still and allow your wounds to heal. Which reminds me that now is a very favourable time to dress them afresh."

"Two days ago--stranded on a sandbank!" repeated Es...o...b.. in bewilderment. "I do not understand you, Mother. Surely I have not been lying insensible for two whole days! And how could I possibly have become stranded on a sandbank? I fell into the river in the _quebrada_, and I am prepared to avouch that there were no sandbanks there!"

"In the _quebrada_! Is it possible?" echoed the old woman. "Why, the end of the _quebrada_ is more than a mile away from where Yupanqui found you! But I think I begin to understand a little. You are not a Spaniard--I can tell that by your accent--therefore you must be an Ingles, one of the _ingenieros_ who are making the new railway among the mountains. Is it not so?"

"You have guessed it, Mother," answered Es...o...b... "Yes, I was taking some measurements in the _quebrada_ when the rope by which I was hanging broke, and I fell into a tree, and thence on to the rocks beneath, after which I lost consciousness."

"Ah!" exclaimed the old woman, as she proceeded to remove deftly the bandages and re-dress Harry's hurts; "yes, it is wonderful--very wonderful; for if you had not chanced to fall into the tree before striking the rocks, you must certainly have been killed. That I can quite understand. But I cannot understand how, after having fallen into the river, you escaped being dashed to pieces upon the many rocks among which it flows, nor how, having escaped that death, you afterwards escaped drowning in the deep water, for you must have been swept along quite a mile after issuing from the _quebrada_. It is true that when Yupanqui found you, you were lying upon your back; so that, I suppose, is the reason why the river did not suffocate you. Your hurts are doing famously, _Senor Ingles_, thanks to my knowledge of simples. There is only one--this in your head--which is likely to give trouble; but we will soon mend that, if you can prevail upon yourself to lie still and not disturb the bandage."

"Oh!" answered Harry; "I will do that all right, now that my senses have come back to me, don't you fear; for I must get well quickly, and return to my work as soon as possible. Meanwhile, Mother, where is your son?

I should like to send him with a message to the engineer's camp, if he will go, to let them know that I am alive."

"a.s.suredly, a.s.suredly," a.s.sented the queer old creature, as she a.s.siduously bathed the wound in Harry's head with a hot fomentation which she had specially prepared. "He is out hunting, now, but the evening is drawing in and I expect him back ere long. When he returns we will hear what he has to say about it. Doubtless he will willingly go; but if your camp is near the spot where I think you must have fallen, it will take him quite half a day to reach it."

"Half a day!" echoed Harry, aghast. "How is that? I should have thought that half an hour would have been nearer the mark."

"Nay, my son," answered the old woman, "he will have to travel fast to do it in half a day. You do not know how difficult it is to travel from place to place among these mountains, even when one knows the way. He will have to go a long way round to reach the spot of which I am thinking, for there are many impa.s.sable precipices in his course, to say nothing of bogs in which, if one be not very careful, one can disappear, leaving no trace behind."