Part 28 (1/2)

The heat was stifling, and the sweat dripped from him, but he toiled on with a savage glee at his success. The foundations had not been dug out; they were ”floating” upon the earth surface; and the labor of undermining would, it appeared, be small.

But Murray in the other prison had smelt the reek before, and was able to put a name to it promptly. ”By Jove! Captain,” he shouted mistily from the distance, ”they're going to smoke us to death; that's the game.”

”Looks like trying it,” panted the little sailor, from his work.

”That's dried camel's dung they're burning. There's no wood in Arabia here, and that's their only fuel. When the smoke gets into your lungs, it just tears you all to bits. I say, Skipper, can't you come to some agreement with Rad over those blessed rifles? It's a beastly death to die, this.”

”You aren't dead--by a long chalk--yet. More'm I. I'd hate to be--smoke-dried like a ham--as bad as any Jew. But I don't start in--to scoff the cargo--on my own s.h.i.+p--at any bally price.”

There was a sound of distant coughing, and then the misty question: ”What are you working at?”

”Taking--exercise,” Kettle gasped, and after that, communication between the two was limited to incessant staccato coughs.

More and more acrid grew the air as the burning camel's dung saturated it further and further with smoke, and more and more frenzied grew Kettle's efforts. Once he got up and stuffed his coat in the embrasure from which the smoke princ.i.p.ally came. But that did little enough good.

The wall was all c.h.i.n.ks, and the bitter reek came in unchecked. He felt that the hacking coughs were gnawing away his strength, and just now the utmost output of his thews was needed.

He had given up his original idea of mining a pa.s.sage under the wall.

Indeed, this would have been a labor of weeks with the poor broken crock which was his only tool, for the weight of the building above had turned the earth to something very near akin to the hardness of stone. But he had managed to sc.r.a.pe out a s.p.a.ce underneath one brick, and found that it was loosened, and with trouble could be dislodged; and so he was burrowing away the earth from beneath others, to drop more bricks down from their places, and so make a gangway through the solid wall itself.

But simple though this may be in theory, it was tediously difficult work in practice. The bricks jammed even when they were undermined, and the wall was four bricks thick to its further side. Moreover, every alternate course was cross-pinned, and the workman was rapidly becoming asphyxiated by the terrible reek which came billowing in from the chamber beyond.

Still, with aching chest, and bleeding fingers, and smarting eyes, Kettle worked doggedly on, and at last got a hole made completely through. What lay in the blackness beyond he did not know; either Rad el Moussa or the fireman might be waiting to give him a _coup de grace_ the moment his head appeared; but he was ready to accept every risk. He felt that if he stayed in the smoke of that burning camel's dung any longer he would be strangled.

The hole in the brickwork was scarcely bigger than a fox-earth, but he was a slightly built man, and with a hard struggle he managed to push his way through. No one opposed him. He found and sc.r.a.ped his only remaining match, and saw that he was in another bottle-shaped chamber similar to the one he had left; but in this there was a doorway. There was pungent smoke reek here also, and, though its slenderness came to him as a blessed relief after what he had been enduring, he l.u.s.ted desperately for a taste of the pure air outside.

The door gave to his touch, and he found a stair. He ran up this and stepped out into the corridor, where Rad had lured him to capture, and then, walking cautiously by the wall so as not to step into any more b.o.o.by-traps, he came to the place where he calculated Murray would be jailed. A large thick carpet had been spread over the door so as to prevent any egress of the stinging smoke, or any ingress of air, and this he pulled away, and lifted the trap.

There was no sound from below. ”Great heavens,” he thought, ”was the mate dead?” He hailed sharply, and a husky voice answered. Seeing nothing else at hand that would serve, he lowered an end of the carpet, keeping a grip on the other, and presently Murray got a hold and clambered up beside him.

In a dozen whispered words Kettle told his plans, and they were on the point of starting off to carry them out, when the _slop-slop_ of slippers made itself heard advancing down the corridors. Promptly the pair of them sank into the shadows, and presently the ex-fireman came up whistling cheerfully an air from some English music-hall. He did not see them till they were almost within hand-grips, and then the tune froze upon his lips in a manner that was ludicrous.

But neither Kettle nor his mate had any eye for the humors of the situation just then. Murray plucked the man's legs artistically from beneath him, and Kettle gripped his hands and throat. He thrust his savage little face close down to the black man's. ”Now,” he said, ”where's Rad? Tell me truly, or I'll make you into dog's meat. And speak quietly. If you make a row, I'll gouge your eyes out.”

”Rad, he in divan,” the fellow stuttered in a scared whisper. ”Sort o'

front shop you savvy, sar. Don' kill me.”

”I can recommend my late state-room,” said Murray.

”Just the ticket,” said Kettle. So into the _oubliette_ they toppled him, clapping down the door in its place above. ”There you may stay, you black beast,” said his judge, ”to stew in the smoke you raised yourself.

If any of your numerous wives are sufficiently interested to get you out, they may do so. If not, you pig, you may stay and cure into bacon.

I'm sure I sha'n't miss you. Come along, Mr. Mate.”

They fell upon Rad el Moussa placidly resting among the cus.h.i.+ons of the divan, with the stem of the water-pipe between his teeth, and his mind probably figuring out plans of campaign in which the captured rifles would do astonis.h.i.+ng work.

Kettle had no revolver in open view, but Rad had already learned how handily that instrument could be produced on occasion, and had the wit to make no show of resistance. The sailor went up to him, delicately extracted the poignard from his sash, and broke the blade beneath his feet. Then he said to him, ”Stand there,” pointing to the middle of the floor, and seated himself on the divan in the att.i.tude of a judge.