We left them to the orgy of a drunken panic, and, descending a winding stair which led to the great cavern, a sound as of a man screaming fell upon our ears. A few steps farther and the cavern, now lighted only by lanterns, showed me the figure of the man Red Roger, triced up to the bare rock and stark naked but for a pair of seaman's breeches about his loins. Holding a flare aloft was Jack-o'-Lantern; while Ned Jolly, who had been to Paris with Black, as they told me, whirled a stout whip of buffalo hide about his head and almost cut the bully in two at every lash. Such a roaring of oaths and imprecations I have never heard before and never shall hear again. The very roof flung the screams of agony back to us, while the whip tore the flesh in strips and left it hanging down the back of that brutal wretch who had sworn to have my life but a few brief hours ago.
I would have interceded with Black to have spared this fellow, but here had been a useless I thing, for he was cast free and fell fainting upon the cavern floor almost as we entered in. The others, grown ashen gray in the extremity of their fear, men face to face with accusation and the gallows, now crowded about the Captain to give news or to receive it. Amid a frenzy of talk, hands uplifted, witness sworn in filthy phrase, I gathered that the truth was known, and that nevermore would the Zero go out from Vares by that door whereby she had entered in. Upon this, there comes the tidings of the soldiers and the bivouac; and then, I think, the ultimate madness of the panic fell upon them all, save the man who should win life or death for them as the judgment ran.
Oh, to hear them in that hour of reckoning! To see them wringing their hands like women, crying for the gold that was lost, cursing the hour which brought them into Spain! To be with them while they ran helter-skelter, some to the outer basin to test the soundings anew; others up to the caves where the Spaniards lay; then back again to the Captain's side to beg salvation upon their knees. And through it all Black remained immobile. It seemed an age before he spoke at all.
"The ship to the pool!"
The command rang out in brazen tones and was caught up by the wretches as a message of their deliverance.
"The ship to the pool!"
What it meant I knew not; yet I saw Jack-o'-Lantern go leaping down to the basin, and after him the engineer Dingo; while fighting for footway were Sambo the nigger, the gunner Ned Jolly, and the giant Bed Roger, reeling and faint and mad for safety. A second cry from the Captain, "Load up and stand by!" was echoed as willingly by a crew already crowding the platform of the ship and lifting her steel hatches.
From them Black turned to Osbart and the French man, and, beckoning me to follow him, he led the way to his own cabin and slammed the door that the riff-raff might not hear him.
"Osbart," says he, going straight to his table, "would you give me the chart of Vares that Guichard made in the year '90? 'Tis there on the shelf behind you, the little book in the green cover. Thank you, and now ll1 take a cigar, if you don't mind, and just a glass of the old stuff to clear my head. Drink up, my lads, and put a bit of colour into your faces. Would ye have the soldiers taking you for women when they come in? Then drink and be d——d to them."
The jest fell ill in that dark place, and I could see Osbart's hand shake as he took the bottle from the Captain and then poured himself out a stiff glass of the brandy. Here he was imitated neither by the "Leopard" nor by me; but, drawing closer to the table, we watched Black as he unfolded the canvas-backed chart and laid it out before him. What was in that alert mind now? What miracle of a chance could be tempting it—what phantom of an idea? For a full quarter of an hour there was not a sound in the cave save that of the deep breathing of men and of the seconds as the great clock numbered them.
"We are wanting three days to the flood," says the Captain at last.
Marchand rejoined that it would be just six tides.
"Ah," says he, "and that's five tides too late for us, but we'll sing hymns that it's not at the neap, surely. Just hand me the compasses, will you,Doctor, and another match for my cigar? The man that sold the box will hear from me when I walk into London. Now, quite quiet everybody for just two minutes. So long, and then I'll tell you."
The minutes were hours, both of them. The silence in the cave was not less profound, but a new sound came to us from without, just as though water had been set running behind the wall of rock and would burst in upon us presently. No one but myself seemed to notice this, and I was far too intent upon the Captain's face to take much notice of it. When he spoke again it was clear that he had come to a resolution, but that even he could flinch from the daring of it.
"Ah, well," says he, throwing the chart aside and taking up the well-bitten cigar, "ah, well, boys, it will have to be by the old river, after all."
Osbart and the Frenchman stepped back from the table together.
"You're mad, by ——!" says the Doctor, his eyes almost starting from his head. The "Leopard" breathed heavily as a man afraid to speak but having much to say.
"The old river!" he gasped at last. "But that is death, death, death, Captain. We go down to the tomb, the waters shall rot us in the old river. Speak again, Captain; it shall not be that."
Black rose majestically and faced them both.
"See here," he said, "it's the old river or hell and death in a Spanish prison. It's the old river or the garrote which bursts a man's head from his neck. The old river or Devil's Island for those whose necks are left. Will you follow me through the darkness or wait until the soldiers come in? They shoot at sight, I'm told, and they carry bayonets. Will ye try the truth of that or go out by the old river? I give you twenty seconds to decide."
What rejoinder could they make to him? I doubt, indeed, if he waited for any; and this much I know for certain, that the words were hardly spoken when he turned about and smote the solid rock behind him. It opened as at a wizard's touch to reveal a heavy door of steel, and, beyond that, an orifice wherefrom there came the sound of rushing water and the voices of men.
"Except Jack-o'-Lantern the others must know nothing," the Captain said; and, upon that, he began to go down the iron ladder which the open door disclosed. And thither we followed him to the platform of the Zero, which lay right beneath us in as beautiful a subterranean pool as the wildest imagination has conceived.
I would have you depict this grotto as all arched over by a roof, wherefrom there depended stalactites of enormous size; not of the common limestone, as might have been expected, but of sprays and spars of a clear crystal, fashioned to these fantastic shapes I know not by what humour of the natural law.
Far beneath lay a pool of running water, bordered by a steep slope of schistous rock which caught up and mirrored the glow of many lanterns and shot back its beams of gold and green upon the stern faces of the men who worked about the ship. West of the pool it was possible to see a clear river running through a wide arch out into this natural basin; but eastward there lay a black tunnel, and it came to me immediately that by this the Captain would pass to the open sea if his daring led him so far. A voyage more terrible to the imagination was not to be thought of, and so swiftly did the dread of it creep upon my awakening mind that I shrank already from the Zero as from a living tomb.
Upon his part, Black had never been more unconcerned. He encouraged the men, who were lifting great packages from the river's depths, and bade them hasten. A precise habit of mind sent the Frenchman up the ladder again for the compasses we had left behind and for a book Black had bought in Paris and had not read. The hazard of the venture appeared to be forgotten altogether. His voice, splendid always, rang out without a quaver when he gave the order to "Step quick," or, "Be easy there." I saw him now at the bows, now at the aft-rail of the Zero, satisfying himself that this or that was done, the ship all trim, the warpings free.