Part 10 (1/2)
”I'm poisoned,” says Billy, spluttering and spitting on the ground.
”What did you do it for, master? I said as how 'twould be no use.”
”You're a Job's comforter,” said I, somewhat tartly, such a speech as Billy's only sharpening the edge of adversity, to my thinking.
”You're another,” says Billy, who did not in the least know what I meant, his acquaintance with the Bible being at that time, I fear, very slight. ”There's the bottom knocked out of the well, and dead men's bones below, that's what it is.”
It did come into my head for a minute that we might have opened up some grave, or at least a place where human folk had been overtaken and buried by lava from the mountain; but I soon gave this up, for the earth was soft, and not a whit like lava, and as for a grave, no one would have dug it so deep down in the earth. I was just as much vexed as Billy was at this untoward event, but I think I was even more curious to learn what was beneath our unlucky well, and I went back soon into the hut, intending to examine the place. However, the evil smell was so overpowering that I was fain to seek the open air again, and it was some time, an hour or two, maybe, before the air became clear enough for us to enter the hut with any comfort. Bethinking myself that the clearing of the air showed that there might be nothing very terrible below, the foul smell being due to the sudden release of air long imprisoned, I got a length of our rope, and let it down with a stone on the end until it touched the bottom, which we found to be twice as deep as before; and when I did this, I perceived another thing which seemed to me mighty strange, which was nothing less than a current of air pa.s.sing up through the well. There was, it is true, a pa.s.sage now between the lake-side and the hut, but we had felt no current when the connection was first established, and yet we could not conceive of a current coming from the very bowels of the earth. Billy declared, in something of a fright, that we had got down to the roots of the mountain, whence came the steam and the hot water; but I answered that this was plainly absurd, the current of air that we felt being perfectly cool, though not very fresh.
I thought we might let down a torch into the well, whereby we should perhaps be able to see something of what was below. Accordingly we kindled a torch of kernels and let it down at the end of a rope, and very evilly it smelled, I a.s.sure you. We observed that the flame flickered a great deal until it descended to the first bottom of our well, or perhaps two or three feet deeper; then the torch burnt more steadily, but the flame did not rise straight up, but seemed to be swayed a little to either side, and I could not help thinking, by the look of it, that it was burning in a greater s.p.a.ce than when it was in our narrow well-shaft. Considering of some means of proving whether this was so or not, I could at first see none, short of enlarging the shaft until one of us could descend it, which indeed neither Billy nor I was disposed to attempt. It was next day when an idea came into my head, and that was occasioned by my seeing the spring-back of Billy's bow when he shot at the running man, at which we exercised ourselves now and again, seeing that we might have real men to shoot at some day.
The spring of the bow, I say, gave me a notion, and taking a flexible strip of wood of the same tree, I tied one end of it to a long pole, and then bent it double, not fastening it in that position, but inserting it thus bent into the shaft, the sides of which prevented it from springing back. Then I lowered the pole, and the bent piece of wood sc.r.a.ped the sides of the well until it reached what had been the bottom and a little beyond it; but then, as I still let down the pole, the bent wood sprang loose, like as Billy's bow did, which showed very plainly that the shaft was much wider below.
This discovery perplexed, nay, disquieted us. For one thing, it was a mercy that we had not lighted on this hollow chamber, for such it must be, when we were driving in the posts for our hut, for then we might have broken our necks. As yet we were ignorant of the extent of this open s.p.a.ce, though we knew its depth, nor could we tell whether it in any way endangered the firmness of the hut. Billy said that if he had known there was such a cellar beneath us he would not have lifted a hand to help me build, and I own that if we had discovered it when we were beginning to build, I should have a.s.suredly chosen another situation. But after spending so many months of hard work in putting up our hut, I was very loath to leave it now and begin all over again, though it was a staggering thought that at any moment of the day or night we might sink, and the hut too, and maybe be cast into another hole, for we could not tell but that the second bottom might give way like the first. Moreover, even supposing that our hut was no less safe than before, all the labour that we had been put to in devising a means of supplying ourselves with water from the lake had gone for nought. I think this was the heaviest blow we had had since we took up our abode on the island, and for a time we stood stock-still, contemplating the dark hole that was the grave, so to speak, of our hopes.
CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH
OF OUR SUBTERRANEOUS ADVENTURE, AND THE MANNER IN WHICH THE WILD DOGS PROFITED BY OUR ABSENCE
”Billy,” said I, after we had stood silent a good while, ”we must find out what is below.”
”What's the good?” says Billy; ”and how can you do it? Neither of us can scrooge ourselves down through this hole, and I ain't a-going to try, that's certain.”
”But you can help to make the hole wider,” I replied.
”And suppose I fall in,” says he, ”who'll pull me out?”
”I should certainly do my best,” said I.
”And suppose you fall in too?” says he, being very persistent.
”Then we shall help each other out,” said I.
”And suppose we find ourselves in the old smoker's kitchen, or get buried alive or something?” says Billy.
”We won't suppose any more, but just set to work,” said I. ”I will dig out the earth, and you can carry it away, and then there'll be no chance of your tumbling in.”
The matter being put thus, Billy would by no means agree to it, but insisted that he would take his turn with me at digging. He asked me, however, how the earth was to be carried away, for if we did it with our hands it would take a month of Sundays. I answered that we must certainly make some baskets, which was a pretty easy matter after a little practice, there being plenty of rushes and such-like things growing at the borders of the lake. Having made two very fair baskets, that would hold about a bushel apiece, we began with our spades to cut away the earth around the hole, Billy carrying it outside the hut when I dug, and I doing the same when he dug. This work was exceeding laborious, since when digging we had to be very careful not to let the earth fall down the shaft and choke it up, and also the basketfuls of earth had to be hauled up every few minutes. We were several days at the work before we came to the bamboo pipe we had driven in from the lake side--not, of course, that we did nothing else, having our other duties to attend to, and besides we now went up to our watch-tower three times, and sometimes four, every day, so that the savages should not come in their canoes and take us by surprise.
[Sidenote: The Cavern]
Having got down to the pipe, which, as I have said, was but a few inches above the cavity into which we had broken, we saw that we must be even more careful, for if the earth should give way all of a sudden, as it did before, we might for all we knew be hurled into a bottomless abyss. All the time we had been digging we had felt the current of cool air striking upward against us, from which it was plain that the chamber below was not a perfectly closed vault, and the only comfort we had of this was that we were certainly not coming to the old smoker's kitchen, as Billy called it, for then the air would have been hot. To avoid this headlong fall, I considered we should now cease to stand on the ledge of earth at the side of the hole, and rig up a rope ladder which we might attach securely to the doorposts above. Billy was digging when this idea came into my head, he being lighter than I, and after I told him of it he scrambled up very quickly by means of steps we had cut in the side, confessing he was glad to get out in safety.
It took us some time to make a rope ladder, but when it was done, and fastened to the doorposts, I descended and hacked away with my spade at the sides of the hole below me until I had made it big enough for my body to go through. Then I got Billy to hand down to me a lighted torch, and bending as low as I could, I clung to the ladder with one hand, and with the other held the torch in the s.p.a.ce below, being nearly suffocated by its stinking fumes. However, by moving the torch backwards and forwards I made out that the s.p.a.ce was a small chamber, oblong in shape, but not regular, and with a floor, but, so far as I could see, no outlet, though I knew there must be one, because of the current of air. Feeling by no means sure of the depth of the floor below me, I clambered up again and pulled the ladder after me, and we lengthened it by some three feet before I descended again. By the light of my torch I then saw that I could drop to the floor without any danger, and I let go the ladder, and fell upon my feet on hard rock.
”What cheer, master?” calls out Billy, with his face close to the top of the shaft above. I told him that I was safe and what manner of place I was in, and said I would explore further, and when I did so I found that we had no need to trouble ourselves about the safety of our hut, because the walls of this underground chamber were of hard rock, like the rocks on the sides of the mountain, and the roof the same, except at the place where we had dug our shaft. How this came to be I did not trouble to think,[1] nor did it concern us, the great matter for us being that our hut had a solid foundation, which was a great comfort. When I told this to Billy, by shouting up through the shaft, the sound of my voice echoing very strangely, he cried back that he was glad to hear it and that he was coming down to see. ”No, no,” I cried at this; ”you keep guard above while I seek further; and besides, the ladder does not reach the ground, and perhaps you couldn't get up again.”
”Then how will you get up, master?” says Billy.
”Why, you can draw the ladder up while I go exploring, and by the time I come back you can lengthen it,” was my answer.