Part 36 (2/2)
”They only want to keep me a prisoner,” said the midshi+pman half an hour after, as he sat with hisaway as a boy of seventeen can eat--”a prisoner till they've got all their stuff safe away They dare not hurtif I can't provescoundrel who trapped me here At all events, I'll try They dare not starve me: not they Wait a bit, and I'll show them that I'm not so stupid as they think Shut me up here, would they? Well, we'll see!”
He went on er, then felt for the bottle, took out the tight cork, had a good long draught of the milk it contained, recorked and put it away in the basket with the bread, butter, and hahed
There was nothing very cheerful about his prison to reat--he felt so different after his hearty meal-- that he was ready to look any difficulty in the face, and full of wonder at his despondency of a short tiic in food to one who is fasting, and is blessed with health and a good appetite
”Now then,” he said, rising with the basket in his hand, ”the first thing is to find a place to stow you;” and he had no difficulty in finding ledge after ledge that would have held the basket, but he wanted one that would be easily found in the darkness
At last he felt his way to a great mass of rock, upon which, about level with his head, was a projection upon which the basket stood well enough, and trusting to being able to find it again by reat block, he turned his attention to the lanthorn
”If I only had that,” he said to hi which way he had better try
”Any way,” he said at last, ”for I will have it; and then if I don't find my way out of this hole, I' out his hands to save hiainst any obstacle, he stalked off in as straight a direction as he could go, feeling his ith his feet, and alwayssure of firm foothold before he reat dread in the vast cavern was lest he should suddenly find hi shaft
He knew little about the district, his ideas of the place being principally confined to what he had seen of the coast-line froed piles of stone had been pointed out to hi the refuse of the stone that had been ages before dug and regularly alleries out of the bowels of the earth; and a little thinking convinced him that he must be shut up in one of those old quarries which had been seized upon by the slers as a place to hide their stores
It was a shrewd guess, and he could not help thinking afterwards that it was no wonder that so little success attended the efforts of the revenue cutter's crew to trace cargoes which had been landed when the s places as this
As he crept slowly on, step by step, these and sih the prisoner's brain, and as he slowly an to wonder where his prison could be--whether it was close to the shore or so to hear the breaking of the waves a the rocks, which would have proved what he wished to know at once; but though he listened again and again, he could not distinguish a sound
The only noises he heard were those he ave forth aup nohat appeared to be a steep slope, over great fragments of stone heavier than he would have been able to lift, and he see was just above hiers tracing out again the great cast of one of the old-world shell-fish--one of the great nautiluses of the geologist
But fossils were unknown things in Archy Raystoke's day He was hunting for a lanthorn, not for specihest part of this pile of stone, he hesitated about going farther, and bore off to his left, feeling that in all probability the object of his search had not come so far
Froht of trying to find the extent of the place by shouting; but he was satisfied with his first essay, his voice going echoing away apparently for a great distance, and the peculiar, dying, whispering sound was not pleasant to one alone in the darkness
After a while, however, as he felt that he alking over sments of stone, he picked up a piece and threw it, to try if he were near the end of the cavern in this direction, for he was growing tired and longed now to find his way to the sailcloth to lie down and rest
The piece he held was about a pound weight, and, drawing back his hand as far as he could reach, he threith all his ht, to start back in alarm, for it struck ith a heavy thud, and dropped down alradually found his way to the pile of kegs, and these he touched the nextthem, the place where he had first come to hi search, and he sank down so wearied out, that as he chose by preference to lie down, he was before etful of the darkness and any peril that ht be ready to assail hiht or day when Archy awoke he could not tell, but he felt rested and refreshed, and ready to try and do so to make his escape
There was a way into his prison, and that way, he vowed, should by so to do was to find that lanthorn, of whose position he seeue idea; but, after a little search, he found that all idea of locality had gone, and he had not the slightest idea of the direction to go next
”I must leave it to chance,” he said ”I shall find it when I' of the search, he set himself now to try and make his way to the place where his visitors had coain, he was utterly at fault, for the cavern was so big and irregular, and he was still so haunted by the thought that he ht be at any moment on the brink of some deep hole, half full of water, that he dared not search so energetically as he would have liked