"There's the Frenchman to be thought of," he said. "I would have you prudent in that matter. The man's gone stark mad, and I must look for another to take his place. That's partly what sends me to Paris and then to Brest. We're shorthanded on the Zero, and we need new blood. I'll find it at Brest among those that can be trusted. Meanwhile, do you and Jack-o'-Lantern see that the French devil lies where he is. I fear him, my lad; the others may be wild enough, but this man has brains, and when you have brains against you, you have danger. Keep him where he lies, and if he dies, let him rot. That's my last word to you. You do your duty by me and you'll not regret it in the days to come."
I made no answer, for the Zero already stirred at her moorings, and I saw that he would go aboard. Now was I to be left alone in the caverns with these unspeakable monsters. And the great Captain had spoken of the "days to come."
What, in God's name, had the "days to come" to do with me? Was not this day all-sufficient, and how should I dare to look beyond it to any hope of liberty or of the old life from which Destiny had snatched me thus a second time.
No, for a truth, my spirit fell to its nadir as the Zero sank to the depths and, passing from my sight, went out to the open sea.
CHAPTER XX
THE SILENCE OF THE CAVERN
I watched the Zero sink beneath the black water and knew that I stood alone. Not a sound but that of the ebb and flow of the sea was now to be heard in the cavern, and there came to me the idea that I was buried alive in a vast tomb, and would never hear a human voice again.
This was a very dreadful thought, and set me shuddering. I looked up to the black roof and remembered the mighty headland which rose above it, a mountain upon the border of the sea. An intense desire for the light of the sun and the open face of day took possession of me, so that a word would have sent me plunging into the pool to swim out either to death or to my liberty.
Beyond all, I think it was the mystery of the tunnels which affrighted me. Whither did they run, and were they but so many blind alleys leading into the bowels of the mountain? A more daring thought said that by one of them a man must be able to pass out to the open country; for if he could not, by what means had the Spaniards come into the caverns at all?
Curiosity was upon me now, and a desire to explore the labyrinth. I went a little way down one of the tunnels, and was brought up suddenly by a sound of raging waters as though a river ran out into the sea and here broke into a cataract. There was no light in the tunnel nor any indication of the river's course; and fearful of a false step I returned to the great cavern. Whatever were the secrets of the dread place, I quickly perceived the nature of the peril which must attend their discovery. Well had Black boasted that this haven was impregnable.
You have heard that the Spaniards had been sent away when we divided the treasure, and I was not a little taken aback to find three of them at the water's edge when I returned. Very civil in their manner, one of them proved to be my own servant, who had apologized for his "very little Engleesh," and he now stepped forward and asked me, with a fine flourish of his sombrero, whether I would "take anything for the eatings." When I asked him what time it was, he produced an old silver watch from the profound depths of a shabby crimson coat and was proud to answer, "eights of the clock, my lord, preciso," a thing which astonished me, for I believed it to be still afternoon.
I told the fellow, as well as I could, to bring me some supper to the Captain's room; and while he served me a little fish and some excellent Spanish sherry, I asked him many questions both of himself and of the caves. Of the former he spoke readily enough, and what between scraps of French and a fearful wrestling with our own tongue, he managed to tell me that he had been one of the famous Civil Guards of Spain. Authority, he avowed, had treated him ill and had trumped up charges altogether beneath the notice of a gentleman. So here he was the servant of the great Captain, and willing to die for him, as he said;—though I make no doubt that he would have cut any man's throat for a guinea.
Of the caves he would say very little. I gathered that they were a famous place with the gentry of the neighbourhood, the wild Spaniards of the western hills, who shot at the law by day and made a jest of it by night. Such rogues had found a friend in Black and were his sworn allies; but as the Spaniard said, there were few of them now living who had the secret of the great cavern. The others were—and here he shrugged his shoulders as one who should say, "They were too curious, my lord."
For all his villainous looks, I liked this Spaniard, and was glad to have him near me. No man who has not lived in them can picture the black solitude of the Caves of Vares or the mortal spell of that immeasurable tomb. I swear that I would sooner have lived a year on a remote atoll of the Pacific than a day by the black waters of the cavern. When the Spaniard left me, a new and intolerable fear of the night overtook me, and I went to my bedroom immediately, and tried to lose in sleep the phantoms which pursued me. Vain effort, for sleep was far from my eyes, and every sound set me bolt upright. I believed that Black had utterly deserted me, and that I should never see the Zero again.
To be sure it was all wild enough, and yet there were excuses. At one time I heard the voices of men very plainly, and could say they were Spaniards who occupied one of the caverns near by my own. The drone of their disputes rose and fell as the surge of the sea; and when the rhythm of it was broken by a loud cry, I recalled the account my servant had given of them, and I listened intently for a message of tragedy. None came, however, and presently the sounds died away and all that I could hear was the story written by the recording finger of the deep. Ebb and flow, ebb and flow … it ran as a song in my head, and upon it I think I must have slept, but so lightly that a breath upon my eyes would have awakened me.
There was another sound anon, and it was more ominous. I woke from my sleep as one who turns upon a dream, and lay with my eyes half closed, listening for the voices of the Spaniards. Thus it was that I first heard the murmur of a lamentation beyond all experience woeful. To begin with I thought it the cry of an animal; by and by I came to say that it was a human voice, the voice of a man in his agony, and that it came to me across the water of the outer basin. Lying there with ear intent, I tried to discover the nationality of the sufferer and his whereabouts, but could make nothing of it. Reason said that one of the Spaniards had been hurt in a quarrel and that he lay wounded in the apartment next my own. Driven by the thought, I slipped on my clothes and went out to the great cavern, thence to the water-side. There I heard the voice very plainly but could not locate it. It was just as though a man had been shut in some dark place and cried piteously but could get no hearing. Vainly, I crept to the water's edge and bent my ear to the surging tide. The sounds were high above me; they came from the black roof of the grotto—as they called the outer basin—and they had sunk until they were but a low groaning.
It would have been at this point that I began to have a clearer conception of this strange experience and to say with some confidence that the man who suffered was the Frenchman. That he had been kept in close confinement since the madness of the mutiny, I did not doubt; and now it appeared that he was a prisoner, here in the Caves of Vares, and that wounds and neglect of them had brought him to this pass. Of this I was sure when I had listened a little while longer; and, hot with anger that the man should have been so treated, I called to him and implored him to answer me. Then I thought that I heard a faint murmur of a response: but this was the intolerable thing, that I was still unable to say whence the voice came.
Now, I had always liked the "Leopard," and I would have given much to have served him that night. You shall judge, then, of my situation when I found myself neither able to visit the man in his cell, if cell it were, nor to find any who would do that service for me. Going back to the great cavern, I discovered but a glimmer of light there and no evidence of any occupation at all. A loud cry for my servant remained unanswered; I peered into this cave and that, but could hap upon no traces of the Spaniards.