A Maid of the Silver Sea Part 40

The boat disappeared round the corner, and presently she saw the three men join the others at the wall, and they all cl.u.s.tered there and talked, and then one by one they disappeared into the wall itself, and she sat watching in fear and trembling.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

HOW TWO WENT IN AND THREE CAME OUT

"It iss better to sit here two, three days till he comse out than to go in and get yourself killt, yes inteet!" was the burden of Evan Morgan's answer to all their arguments for a speedy a.s.sault. And "Iss, sure!" was Trevna's curt, complete endors.e.m.e.nt.

But when, at John Drillot's suggestion, they had squeezed under the slab to have a look at what lay below, and had peered down the slit that Gard tried first, and had then lighted on the tunnel, and had found the gun and powder-flask jammed in a crevice--that put a different face on the matter.

And, after prolonged discussion as to the proper method of procedure, especially in the matter of precedence, it was at last arranged that Evan Morgan should go first with his miner's lamp, and that John Trevna should follow close behind, carrying the gun.

"And iss it understood that I shoot him if I see him?" asked Trevna, to make sure of his ground and make his conscience easy.

"Pardi, yes, mon gars! Shoot straight, and the Island will thank you,"

a.s.serted John Drillot.

"Ant for Heaven's sake, John Trevna, see you ton't shoot me behint by mistake," urged Evan Morgan; and they disappeared slowly into the tunnel, while the other two stood waiting expectantly in the well.

Accustomed as they were to narrow places, this long worm-hole of a tunnel, with the doubtful possibilities that lay beyond it, seemed as endless to the militant members of the expedition as it did to the waiters outside.

Occasionally a hollow sound came booming down the tunnel, when one or other grunted out a word of objurgation on the narrowness of things, but for the most part they wormed along in silence, Morgan s.h.i.+fting forward his lamp, foot by foot, and straining his eyes into the darkness ahead, Trevna close behind with his gun at full c.o.c.k and ready for instant action.

"Gad'rabotin, but they take their time, those two!" said John Drillot, impatiently, outside.

"It iss going right through to Wailee, I do think," growled Evan Morgan inside.

And it was just after that that there broke out in the depths of the tunnel a commotion so extraordinary that the listeners outside could make nothing at all of it, and could only lurch about in amazement and climb up and push their heads into the tunnel, and wonder what it all meant. Then, in the midst of the turmoil, there came the thunderous bellow of the gun, and after a time a trickle of thin blue smoke floated lazily out and hung about the well; and the men outside sniffed appreciatively, and said, "Ch'est b'en!" and waited hopefully.

Evan Morgan, s.h.i.+fting forward his light, got an impression of something in the narrow way in front, and suddenly he was taken with the biggest fit of sneezing he had ever had in his life. He banged down the lamp and threw up his head till it cracked against the roof, then banged his chin against the floor, and finally propped himself, like a sick dog, on his two front paws, and sneezed and sneezed and sneezed for dear life.

Then John Trevna began. He had the sense to lay down his gun, or Morgan might have got the charge in his back. And so they sneezed in concert, until their heads were clearer than they had been for many a day. And the sound of it all to those outside was like the sound of mortal combat.

Then Morgan, wiping his streaming eyes on the sleeve of his coat, in a state of extreme exhaustion, caught sight of that which lay just beyond him, and he saw that it was a man crawling down the tunnel to meet him.

"Shoot, John, shoot! He iss here," he yelled, and laid himself flat to give Trevna his chance.

And Trevna, between two sneezes, picked up his gun, though he could see nothing to shoot at, and ran the barrel forward above Morgan's head and fired, and the roar of it in that confined s.p.a.ce came near to deafening them both.

The smoke hung thick and choked them, as they gasped it in in gulps while they sneezed, and the light had gone out with the concussion.

They lay for a time exhausted. Then the atmosphere cleared somewhat, and they lay in the thick darkness straining their ears for any sound, but heard nothing.

"What did you see, Evan Morgan?" whispered Trevna at last.

"It wa.s.s a man."

"Then I have killed him, for he does not move. Can you light the lamp?"

"I can not--in here. I am coing out. I haf hat enough of this."

"We must take him out, too."

"You can tek him, then, John Trevna. I haf hat enough of him and this hole."

"Don't be a fool, Evan Morgan. If it wa.s.s a man, and he got that load in him as close as that, he iss deader than Tom Hamon."

"Well, you can go an' see. I am coing out," and he began to wriggle backwards, and Trevna was fain to go too.

But presently they came to one of the somewhat wider places where the wall had fallen away, and Trevna squeezed himself tightly into this.

"You go on, then, Evan Morgan," he said, "if you can get past, and I will go back and bring him out."

"You are a fool, John Trevna, to meddle with him any more. Iff the man iss dead, he iss just as well left there."

"If he iss dead he cannot harm me, and I would like to see the man I have killed."

"Ugh!" grunted Morgan, and crawled on, legs first.

Trevna wormed along up the tunnel, groping cautiously in front of him at each forward lurch, and at last his hands fell on what he sought, and at the same moment he began sneezing again.

It would be no easy job dragging a dead man all down that tunnel, he thought. But when, after cautious feeling here and there, he got a grip of the man's coat collar, to his surprise it came away in his hand, but at the same time it seemed to him that the body was extraordinarily light.

He tried again with a fresh grip on the coat, but it tore like paper, and, after thinking it over, he unstrapped his leather belt and got it round the man below the armpits, and so was able to haul him slowly along.

When Evan Morgan's wriggling legs came slowly out of the tunnel, John Drillot and Peter Vaudin were almost dancing with excitement, and their first surprise was the sight of him when, by rights, John Trevna should have been the one to come out first.

"Well then? What have you done? And where is John Trevna?" cried John Drillot.

"Ach! He iss a fool. He ha.s.s shot the man and now he will pring him out when he woult pe much petter buried where he iss."

"He's quite right. What was all the noise about?"

"That wa.s.s the shooting."

"Before that. You all seemed to be howling at once."

"That wa.s.s the sneezing. It iss full of sneezing down there," and his red eyes still showed the effect of it.

It was a long time before they heard the laboured sounds of Trevna's coming. But at last his legs wriggled out, then his body, then with a lurch he hauled up to the mouth of the tunnel that which he had brought with him. And at sight of it they all started back against the sides of the well, with various cries but equal amazement.

"O mon Gyu!" cried Peter Vaudin.

"Thousand devils!" cried John Drillot.

"Heavens an' earth!" gasped Evan Morgan.