Part 56 (1/2)

It did not light.

He waited a minute to think. Then he struck it again, this time with success. He touched it to the rags of his coat, and the oil-soaked cloth flashed brightly into flame. He held the blazing jacket in his hand, looked around him for one moment to choose his way, and then began to run.

It was a travesty on running, to be sure, but it was the best he could do. He staggered and stumbled; he lurched rapidly ahead for a little s.p.a.ce and then moved with halting steps. His limbs grew weak, his breath came in gasps, and the pain in his side was cutting him like a knife.

But he thought he was going very rapidly. He could see so nicely too.

The flames, fanned by the motion, curled up and licked his hand and wrist, but he scarcely knew it.

Then his foot struck some obstacle in the way and he fell. For a moment he lay there panting and helpless, while the burning cloth, thrown from him in his fall, lighted up the narrow s.p.a.ce around him till it grew as clear as day. But all this splendid glow should not be wasted; it would never do; he must make it light him on his journey till the last ray was gone.

He staggered to his feet again and ran on into the ever growing darkness. Behind him the flames flared, flickered, and died slowly out, and when the last vestige of light was wholly gone he sank, utterly exhausted, to the floor of the mine, and thick darkness settled on him like a pall.

A long time he lay there wondering vaguely at his strange misfortunes.

The fever in his blood was running high, and, instead of harboring sober thought, his mind was filled with fleeting fancies.

It was very still here, so still that he thought he heard the throbbing in his head. He wondered if it could be heard by others who might thus find where he lay.

Then fear came on him, fear like an icy hand clutching at his breast, fear that would not let him rest, but that brought him to his feet again and urged him onward.

To die, that was nothing; he could die if need be; but to be shut up here alone, with strange and unseen things hovering about him in the blackness, that was quite beyond endurance. He was striving to get away from them. He had not much thought, now, which way he went, he cared little for direction, he wished only to keep in motion.

He had to stop at times to get breath and to rest his limbs, they ached so. But, whenever he stood still or sat down to rest, the darkness seemed to close in upon him and around him so tightly as to give him pain. He would not have cared so much for that, though, if it had not been filled with strange creatures who crept close to him to hear the throbbing in his head. He could not bear that; it compelled him to move on.

He went a long way like this, with his hands before him, stumbling, falling, rising again, stopping for a moment's rest, moaning as he walked, crying softly to himself at times like the sick child that he was.

Once he felt that he was going down an inclined way, like a long chamber; there had been no prop or pillar on either side of him for many minutes. Finally, his feet touched water. It grew to be ankle deep. He pushed on, and it reached half-way to his knees. This would never do. He turned in his tracks to retreat, just saved himself from falling, and then climbed slowly back up the long slope of the chamber.

When he had reached the top of it he thought he would lie down and try not to move again, he was so very tired and sick.

In the midst of all his fancies he realized his danger. He knew that death had ceased to be a possibility for him, and had come to be more than probable.

He felt that it would be very sad indeed to die in this way, alone, in the dark, in the galleries of this old mine; it was not the way Robert Burnham's son should have died. It was not that he minded death so much; he would not have greatly cared for that, if he could only have died in his mother's arms, with the sweet sunlight and the fresh air and the perfume of flowers in the room. That, he thought, would have been beautiful, very beautiful indeed. But this, this was so different.

”It is very sad,” he said; ”poor Ralph, poor boy.”

He was talking to himself. It seemed to him that he was some one else, some one who stood by trying to pity and console this child who was dying here alone in the awful darkness.

”It's hard on you,” he said, ”I know it's hard on you, an' you've just got to where life'd be worth a good deal to you too. You had your bitter an' the sweet was just a-comin'; but never mind, my boy, never mind; your Uncle Billy says 'at heaven's a great sight better place 'an any you could ever find on earth. An', then, you're Robert Burnham's son, you know, an' that's a good deal to think of; you're--Robert Burnham's--son.”

For a long time after this there was silence, and the boy did not move. Then fear came back to him. He thought that the darkness was closing in again upon him, that it pressed him from above, from right and left, that it crowded back his breath and crushed his body. He felt that he must escape from it.

He was too weak now to rise and walk, so he lifted himself to his hands and knees and began to move away like a creeping child.

There were many obstacles in his path, some of them imaginary, most of them real. There were old mine caps, piles of dirt, pieces of slate, and great lumps of coal on' which he cut his hands and bruised his knees. But he met and pa.s.sed them all. He was intent only on getting away from these dreadful powers of darkness, they tortured him so.

And he did get away from them. He came to a place where the s.p.a.ce about him seemed large, where the floor was smooth, and the air so clear and pure that he could breathe it freely.

Utter darkness, indeed, surrounded him, but it was a darkness not peopled with evil beings; it was more like the sweet darkness of a summer night, with the fragrance of dew-wet flowers in the air.