Brownsmith's Boy Part 66

"No: I don't want any, Shock. You may have it."

"You don't want none?" he said, staring at me with astonishment.

"No: I've got some sandwiches in my pocket, and I shall eat them by and by."

"Oh, all right!" he said; and, taking his pocket-knife, he cut off the rabbit's head and held it out to the dog.

"There's your bit," he said. "Be off."

Juno took the hot delicacy rather timorously; but she seemed to give the donor a grateful look, and then trotted out into the suns.h.i.+ne, and lay down to crunch the bones.

The fire was nearly out, the fir-wood burning fiercely and quickly away; but though it was a nuisance to me it seemed to find favour with Shock, who set to work, like the young savage he was, tearing off and devouring the rabbit, throwing the bones together, ready for the dog when she should come back. I felt half disgusted, and yet hungry, so, going to where I had hung my jacket, I thought I would get out the sandwiches Mrs Solomon had cut for me; but as I turned round and looked at Shock I felt that I should enjoy them better if I waited till he had done.

So I leaned against the rough side of the sand-cave, watching him tear away at the bones, holding a piece in one hand, the remains of the rabbit in the other.

I remember it all so well--him sitting there with just a faint blue curl of smoke rising from the embers, and beyond him, seen as it were in a rugged frame formed by the low entrance of the hole, was the lovely picture of hill and vale, stretching far as the eye could reach, and all bright in the suns.h.i.+ne, and with the bare sky beyond.

I was just thinking what a rough-looking object Shock seemed as he sat there just in the entrance to the hole, and wis.h.i.+ng that, now he had a good situation and was decently clothed, he would become like other boys, when I saw Juno come slowly towards Shock, wagging her tail and showing her teeth as if asking for more bones, but she suddenly whisked round and darted away, as, with a noise like a dull clap of thunder, something seemed to shut out the scene from the mouth of the hole, I felt a puff of heat and smoke in my face, and all was darkness.

I stood there as if petrified for a minute, I should think, quite unable to make out what was the matter, and panting for breath.

Then the thought came like a flash, that a quant.i.ty of sand had fallen, and blocked up the mouth of the cave.

For a moment or two I felt as if I should fall. Then the instinct of self-preservation moved me to act, and with my hands stretched out before me I went quietly towards the entrance.

"Shock! Shock!" I cried, but there was no reply, and it sounded as if my voice was squeezed up in a narrowed s.p.a.ce; then I seemed to hear a rustling noise as I stepped forward, I was kicked violently in the s.h.i.+ns and fell forward with my hands plunging into a ma.s.s of soft sand, and to my horror I found that I was lying upon my companion, who was half buried.

The perspiration stood out all over me as I leaped to my feet; and then went down again to find that Shock was kicking frantically, and a moment's investigation told me that he could not extricate himself.

Seizing one of his legs, which as I grasped by the ankle and clasped it to my side, kept giving spasmodic jerks, I dragged with all my might, and found I could not move him; but as I dragged again he seemed to give a tremendous throb, and I went backwards, followed, it seemed to me in the darkness, by a quant.i.ty of soft sand; but Shock was free, for I could feel him by me lying on his face, and as I turned him over he uttered a groan.

And now a horrible sensation of fear came over me as I thoroughly realised that I was buried alive in that sand-cave. I felt that my climbing about on the top of the cliff had loosened or cracked the compressed sand. Shock and I had jumped about over it when we threw down the wood we had gathered, and that seemed to be the explanation of the mishap.

But I had no time to think of this now, for the thought that perhaps Shock was killed, suffocated, came over me with terrible force, and I bent over him, feeling his face, his heart, and hands.

His heart was beating fast, and his hands were warm, but though I spoke to him over and over again, in the darkness, there was no answer, and with a cry of despair I threw myself on my knees, when all at once he shouted:

"Hullo!"

"Shock," I cried, "I'm here."

"What yer do that for?" he cried fiercely.

"I didn't do anything."

"Yes, yer did," he cried. "Yer threw a lump o' sand on my head. I'm half blind, and my ears is full. Just wait till I gets hold on yer, I'll pay yer for it."

Then he began panting, and spitting, and muttering about his eyes, and at last--"Here, where are yer?"

"I'm here, close by you," I said. "Don't you understand? The sand has fallen and shut us in."

There was silence for a few minutes--a terrible painful silence to me, as I felt that I was face to face with death. Then Shock seemed to have grasped the situation, for he said coolly enough:

"Like the rabbuds. Well, we shall have to get out."

"Yes, but how?" I cried.

"Same's they do. Scratch yer way, and make a hole. I don't mind, do you?"

"Mind!" I said, "it's horrible."

"Is it?" he replied quietly. "Why?"

"Don't you see--"

"No," he said sharply, "not werry well. I can a little."

"But I mean, don't you understand?" I cried in an awe-stricken choking voice, "that if we don't get out soon, we shall die."

"What, like when you kills a rabbud or a bird?"

"Yes."

"Get out!" he cried in contemptuous tones. "I hadn't finished my rabbud, and my eyes is half full of sand still."

"Never mind the rabbit," I said angrily, "let's try and dig our way out."

"Let Ikey do it," he said, "he's got the shovels."

"But will he find out where we are," I cried, for I must own to being terribly unnerved, and ready to marvel at Shock's coolness.

"Why, of course he will," said Shock. "I say, don't you be frightened.

You don't mind the dark, do you?"

"I don't mind the dark," I replied, "but it's horrible to be shut in here."

"Why, it's only sand," he said, "only sand, mate."

"But it nearly smothered you," I cried. "It would have smothered you if I hadn't pulled you out."

"Yes, but that was because it fell atop of my head and held me down, else it wouldn't. I thought it was your games."

I had never heard Shock talk like this before. Our mutual distress seemed to have made us friends, and I felt ready to shake hands with him and hold on by his arm.

"I say," he cried, his voice sounding, like mine, more and more subdued--at least so it seemed to me--"I say, I weren't looking; it didn't go down on the dog too--did it?"

"No, Shock, I saw her run away."

There was a few moments' silence and then he said: