Part 31 (1/2)

On the evening of the third day his hopes had risen with a slight slackening of the turmoil. He was not sure if the gale had really abated, or if it was only that he was growing accustomed to it. But under that belief, and the compulsion of a growling stomach, he crawled precariously round to the eastern end of the rock where the puffins had their holes, lying flat when the great gusts s.n.a.t.c.hed at him as though they were bent on hurling him into the water, and gliding on again in the intervals. And there, with a piece of his firewood he managed to extort half-a-dozen eggs from fiercely expostulating parents. The end of his stick was bitten to fragments, but he got his eggs, and was amazed at the size of them compared with that of their producers.

The sight of the great wall of tumbled rocks on his right, and the sudden remembrance of his previous pa.s.sage over it, set him wondering if it might not be possible to find better shelter in some of those fissures across which he had had to swing himself by the hands on the previous occasion. For this was the leeward side of the island, and the huge bulk of it rose like a protecting shoulder between him and the gale, whereas his bee-hive, on the exposed flank of the rock, got the full force of it. So he scooped a hole in the friable black soil and deposited his eggs in it and crawled along to the wall.

The tumbled fragments looked much less fearsome than they had done in the fog. He found no difficulty in clambering among them now, when he could see clearly what he was about, and he wormed his way in and out, and up and down, but could not light on any of those tricky s.p.a.ces which had seemed to him so dangerous before.

And then, as he crawled under one huge slab, a black void lay before him, of no great width but evidently deep. It took many minutes'

peering into the depths to accustom his eyes to the dimness.

Then it seemed to him that the rough out jutting fragments below would afford a holding, and he swung his feet cautiously down and felt round for foothold.

Carefully testing everything he touched, he let himself down, inch by inch, a.s.sured that if he could go down he could certainly get up again.

At first the gale still whistled through the crevices among the boulders, but presently he found himself in a silence that was so mighty a change from the ceaseless roar to which he was becoming accustomed, that he felt as though stricken with deafness. Up above him the light filtered down, tempered by the slab under which he had come, and enabled him still to find precarious hand and foot hold.

But presently his downward progress was barred by a rough flooring of splintered fragments, and he stood panting and looked about him.

His well was about twenty feet deep, he reckoned, and there were gaping slits here and there which might lead in towards the rock or out towards the sea. He had turned and twisted so much in his descent that it took him some time to decide in which direction the sea might lie and in which the rock. And, having settled that, he wriggled through a crevice and wormed slowly on.

He was almost in the dark now, and could only feel his way. But he was used to groping in narrow places, and a spirit of investigation urged him on.

Half an hour's strenuous and cautious worming, and a thin trickle of light glimmered ahead. He turned and worked his way back at once.

There was no slit opposite the one he had tried, but presently, half-way up the well, he made out an opening like the mouth of a small adit. His back had been to it as he came down, and so he had missed it.

He climbed up and in, and felt convinced in his own mind that this was no simple work of nature. Nature had no doubt begun, but man had certainly finished it. For the floor level was comparatively free from harshness, and the outjutting projections of the sides and roof had been tempered, and progress was not difficult.

It was very narrow, however, and very low, and quite dark. He could only drag himself along on his stomach like a worm. But he pushed on with all the ardour of a discoverer.

Was it silver? Was it smugglers? Or what? Wholly accidental formation he was sure it was not, though he thought it likely that man's handiwork had only turned Nature's to account.

The fissure had probably been there from the beginning of time, or it might be the result of numberless years of the slow wearing away of a softer vein of rock, but some man at some time had lighted on it, and followed it up, and with much labour had smoothed its natural asperities and used it for his own purposes. And he was keen to learn what those purposes were.

To any ordinary man, accustomed to the ordinary amplitudes of life, and freedom to stretch his arms and legs and raise his head and fill his lungs with fresh air, a pa.s.sage such as this would have been impossible.

Here and there, indeed, the walls widened somewhat through some fault in the rook, bur for the most part his elbows grazed the sides each time he moved them.

Even he, used as he was to such conditions, began at last to feel them oppressive. The whole mighty bulk of L'Etat seemed above and about him, malignantly intent on crus.h.i.+ng him out of existence.

He knew that was only fancy. He had experienced it many times before.

But the nightmare feeling was there, and it needed all his will at times to keep him from a panic attempt at retreat, when the insensate rock-walls seemed absolutely settling down on him, and breathing was none too easy.

But going back meant literally going backwards, crawling out toes foremost; for his elbows sc.r.a.ped the walls and his head the roof, and turning was out of the question. The men who had made and used that narrow way had undoubtedly gone with a purpose, and not for pleasure.

And he was bound to learn what that purpose was.

So he set his teeth, and wormed himself slowly along, with pinched face and tight-shut mouth, and nostrils opened wide to take in all the air they could and let out as little as possible. And, even at that, he had to lie still at times, pressed flat against the floor, to let some fresher air trickle in above him.

But at last he came to what he sought, though no whit of it could he see when he got there. By the sudden cessation of the pressure on his sides and head, he was aware of entrance into a larger s.p.a.ce, and, with forethought quickened by the exigences of his pa.s.sage, he lay for a moment to pant more freely and to think.

His body was in the pa.s.sage. He knew where the pa.s.sage led out to. What lay ahead he could not tell.