The Old Man of the Mountain Part 18

Two or three hours went by. Forrester paced up and down the cavern in uncontrollable agitation. The thought of losing this cheery companion was torture. He wondered with a carking anxiety what had happened to Mackenzie and Jackson--to Hamid Gul, too, the faithful servant whose little odd turns of phrase a.s.sumed almost a pathetic winningness as they recurred to his mind. But always his thoughts came back to Beresford; his imagination focussed that solitary figure confronting the cold, implacable personification of Fate on his golden throne.

Many times he went to the entrance, not heeding, unheeded by, the mute effigy in the sentry-box, and gazed across the lake into the opening beyond. For what seemed an eternity no vision of the lithe st.u.r.dy form came to gladden his eyes. But on one of these occasions his anxious ear caught the dull tramp of many feet, and presently, at the head of a negrito escort, appeared Beresford himself.

"Back again!" he shouted, his strong voice rolling over the lake.

Forrester met him at the entrance of the cave, and clasped his hand in a nervous grip.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Forrester met him at the entrance of the cave.]

"I've had quite a good time," said Beresford, linking arms. "The Old Man has been puzzling his wicked old head over my tablet, and he'll puzzle till doomsday for me! He orated solemnly, of course, about the Law of the Eye, and very cleverly hinted, without actually saying so, that the Law demanded an exact translation of the Brahmi writing. I told him, quite politely, to go to Jericho. He, quite politely, regretted that I had made such a poor use of my opportunities of learning wisdom. A mischievous impulse seized me to give him a shock, so I let out a few home-truths--in Chinese! Believe me, he didn't turn a hair: I don't believe he has one to turn. He scored there, but on the whole I think we may consider it a drawn game. He recommended me to persevere in the pursuit of wisdom, wrapped himself in his mist-blanket, and no doubt crept back like a disappointed spider to his web."

Beresford found next day, however, that the Old Man's politeness had its reverse side. When the new priest arrived, he signified that the Englishman was to do a day's work in the inner cavern.

"It's not meant in kindness," Beresford remarked to Forrester, "but I couldn't have wished for anything better. I shall work quicker than the Chinamen, and when my tale of bricks is complete I shall have a good part of the day to myself. Lend me that screen of yours, will you?"

Forrester waited impatiently for the day to end. When Beresford returned, very white and tired, he said:--

"I've something to tell you. Give me forty winks after supper and I'll be as fresh as a lark."

A little later, in their quiet corner, Beresford began:--

"That slab! I'm convinced that it's nothing but a sort of cement, made of the dust that has fallen from the roof, and that this screen is of the same material. I believe that the mysterious force from below, while it turns lead into gold, makes powder of all other substances exposed to its rays. This dust is no longer subject to its influence, and forms a s.h.i.+eld against it. But for the dust, it would have bored a hole right through the roof to the upper air ages ago; but the coating of dust on the sides and roof of the cavity has preserved it. Of course, the slight earth tremors that are constantly occurring, unnoticed by us, shake down particles of the dust, and leave portions of the rock surface exposed to the action of the rays. So there's a very gradual process of eating away going on, and in course of time the rock above the cavern will be pierced clean through."

"I see," said Forrester. "The force must have been in action for ages, so that it may be ages before the hole is made. Anyway, it doesn't matter to us."

"I'm not so sure of that," returned Beresford quietly. "If we could only hasten the process, and get a ladder, we might pay our venerable host a surprise visit one of these days, for I'm pretty sure, thinking over the direction of the pa.s.sages we came through on the way here, that we're almost directly under the Temple. That itself is underground, or it wouldn't glow with the green light; and you may be sure it's connected with the Old Man's paG.o.da. It would give me great joy to intrude upon his solitude, and see him in his bath, so to speak."

"I'd rather give him a wide berth," said Forrester. "Anyhow, it doesn't seem possible."

"We have no ladder, and certainly we can't emulate the Earth-shaker, and engineer a series of mild earthquakes expressly for our own convenience.

Ah well! like the heathen, I daresay we imagine a vain thing. What's that line of Virgil?--_animum pictura_ ... you remember the pa.s.sage; where aeneas is looking at the frescoes in Dido's palace, 'and with an empty picture feeds his mind.' Well, better feed the mind even on fancies than let it starve, like these poor Chinamen. And now for sleep."

It became clear that the Old Man had set himself pitilessly to undermine Beresford's courage. Instead of taking his turn with the Chinamen in rotation at the enervating work in the inner cavern, Beresford was given the task every second day. Robust as he was, and endowed with great strength of will, the electric atmosphere wrought its devitalising effect on him, and Forrester, after a week, noticed with sickening dread that his eyes were less bright, his cheeks less rounded, his voice less resonant. An offer to replace him was rejected by the priest; Forrester wondered why he himself was being spared.

The hours dragged very heavily while Beresford was absent at his work.

Forrester had nothing to do. He roamed about the cavern, talked a little to Wing Wu, looked in at Beresford occasionally; but during the greater part of the day he had only his thoughts to occupy him. But it happened one day, as he pa.s.sed the spot where the spare bamboo poles were laid, that an idea flashed into his mind. It seemed fantastic, probably impracticable; but it might at least be attempted: anything was better than this stagnant life in death.

The success or failure of the scheme that had occurred to him depended on the accuracy of Beresford's theory that the dust formed by the action of the rays on the cavern roof protected the rock from further destruction. If this was correct, and the dust could be removed, exposing fresh surfaces, the piercing of the chimney could be accelerated far beyond its normal rate. With a sufficiently long pole the dust coating could be brought down during the intervals when the rays were shut off by the slab. Such a pole might be constructed from the bamboo rods.

A difficulty arose from the fact that the cavern was never dark. It was always pervaded by the dim green light emanating from the walls. But the rods were partially screened by the sentry-box, and Forrester thought that in the dead of night, when the priest was asleep, and the negritos more or less drowsy, he might succeed in purloining the bamboo, and carrying it into the pa.s.sage beyond the inner cavern.

Without mentioning the matter to Beresford, he waited till all was quiet, then stole round the wall towards the rods, picked up as many as he could carry, and made his way undetected to the place determined on.

Next night he removed a few more in the same way. Their disappearance had apparently not been noticed by the priest.

The following day was Beresford's turn of duty. In the early morning, after the new priest had arrived, Forrester told his companion what he had done.

"_Fiat experimentum!_" cried Beresford delightedly. "I will tell you the result to-night. But not a word to Wing Wu. One of these days Wen s.h.i.+h may occupy the sentry-box, and the poor lad will blab everything."

As soon as he had completed the trans.m.u.tation of the allotted number of plates, Beresford fitted two of the bamboo rods together telescopically, tied his coat by its sleeves to the end of the pole thus formed, and inserting this wad into the cavity, thoroughly scoured its roof. A considerable quant.i.ty of fine dust fell on to the slab and the floor around. He then raised the slab, allowing the rays to play on the roof for a longer time than when the leaden plates were sunk in the pit.

This process he repeated again and again, heedless of his increasing weariness and a stupefying headache, until Forrester rushed in hurriedly to say that the priest, evidently surprised at his unusually prolonged absence, was coming towards the pa.s.sage to seek its explanation.

Beresford instantly untied his coat, donned it, while Forrester laid the pole in the recess; then, taking Forrester's arm, met the priest at the entrance, feigning a deeper exhaustion than he actually felt. The priests seldom entered the inner cavern; this man threw a casual glance around it, and followed the prisoners back to the outer cavern, suspecting nothing.

"It works!" Beresford whispered when he got to his customary place, and at once fell into a dead sleep.

Later on, he told Forrester that the experiment had succeeded beyond his hope.

"As nearly as I could measure with the pole," he said, "the cavity is lengthened by at least a foot. The rays act with tremendous rapidity.

In a few days, unless we are much deeper than I think, we shall have cut a hole right through to the level of the Temple floor."

"But what then?" asked Forrester dejectedly. "I thought of it merely as giving us something to do--you are doing it all!--something that would buck you up if it proved your theory; but it will do us no good."

"It will at least scare the Old Man. If we are careful, he will never suspect that we have anything to do with it. He may even think the place no longer safe for his old carcase, and decamp."

"Leaving us to peris.h.!.+"

"There's an old saw, 'Never go up to the chimney-pots to look for the rain.' We'll take things as they come. By the way, do you feel able to take a turn to-night, when all's quiet? The clink of the chain can't be heard here, and it will quicken the job."

"I'll try," said Forrester at once. "I've felt mean ever since they put you on and left me out."

"Thanks! One thing we must be very careful about: to brush away the dust to the sides of the cavern. We mustn't arouse suspicion. Will you do that before you leave? Don't work for more than an hour or two, as nearly as you can guess, and come away at once if you feel faint. Lay the pole against the wall of the farther pa.s.sage; the Chinamen never go there, and thank goodness the priests are shy of the place, small blame to them!"

The work thus begun was continued at every opportunity during the succeeding days and nights. The pole had to be lengthened by the addition of another rod: foot by foot the chimney was excavated, the width of it remaining uniform, corresponding to the shape of the hole in the floor.

Every night before they slept the Englishmen talked over the progress made during the day.

"If we only had a ladder!" said Beresford once. "I agree with you: the mere cutting of the chimney will be an empty triumph. We shouldn't be properly const.i.tuted men if we didn't wish to profit by our energies.

Every man who isn't a mug, as soon as he has conquered one difficulty, burns to tackle another. I've puzzled and puzzled, but I see no way whatever of using the chimney as a channel of escape."

"Couldn't we make a ladder of bamboo?"

"Quite impossible! To begin with, there isn't enough of it; then, we have no tools. It is tantalising in the extreme."

"There's this to be said. Even if we did break through, it would only be to find ourselves in the midst of our enemies. It would mean the Eye for both of us."

"I have been wondering lately whether that wouldn't after all be better than to stay here much longer. Forrester, the Old Man has beaten me at last. If he sends for me again, I'm afraid I shall ignominiously cave in. It was one thing to pity those poor Chinamen when we had no real personal knowledge of what they were suffering. It is quite another to share it, to feel the steady sapping of one's vigour, the horrible blankness that comes over one's mind. I know for the first time in my life what it is to writhe in the clutches of Giant Despair."

In his many blank moments, Forrester reflected in utter desolation of spirit on their desperate case. Ill and miserable as he himself felt, he dwelt, not on his own condition, but on the appalling change that was creeping over the once buoyant-hearted companion of his imprisonment.

The cheeriness was gone. It was an effort now to Beresford to talk.

The sickly hue induced by the greenish light had become on his countenance a ghastly pallor. His limbs shook, his gait was slow and stumbling, his once upright frame was beginning to stoop like that of an old man. On his days off duty he lay like a log, sleeping, or simply existing in apathy and listlessness. Was he to drift thus on a slow tide towards death?

One night, Forrester was wearily laying the pole in its resting-place, when he heard a sudden click near by, such as might be caused by the fall of some hard substance on the floor. He looked down, but there was nothing on the smooth rock to account for the sound. In a moment it was followed by a second click, apparently a little nearer, and from the direction of the cleft in the wall. His curiosity thoroughly aroused, Forrester stooped and glanced in. The light in the cleft was dim, but after peering for a few seconds, he caught sight of a small object at a distance of perhaps ten or twelve feet away. He had not noticed it when looking into the cleft before, but that might merely have been because he was not expecting to see anything, nor indeed making a keen examination. But it seemed that the object must have moved; otherwise the click was scarcely explicable; and Forrester was sufficiently interested to wish to get hold of it. It was far beyond reach; the cleft was too narrow to admit his head and shoulders; but he could edge one of the shorter bamboo rods sideways into the hole, and then worry the object forward until he could grasp it.

This was the work of less than a minute. To his intense mortification, the thing, when it came to hand, turned out to be nothing but a bone.

He was on the point of throwing it back, when the idea struck him that the discovery might give a momentary fillip to Beresford's flagging spirits. So he slipped the bone into his pocket, and returned to the outer cavern.

Next morning he accompanied Beresford, as he sometimes did, to the entrance of the trans.m.u.ting chamber, and watched him commence his daily task. He had forgotten the incident of the night. But when the place was irradiated with the brilliant rays, he chanced to put his hand into his pocket, felt the bone, and drew it out, thinking now so little of it as to purpose casting it into the open pit. But as he turned it over in his hand, he caught sight of some thin white scratches upon it, at first sight irregular and fortuitous, but, at a second glance, forming, as it seemed to him, the initials of his name, R.F.

Puzzled, and a little excited, he looked at it more carefully. It was not an old bone; a fragment of tendon, still supple, adhered to it.