The Burning Bridge by Philip Verrill Mighels (the best novels to read TXT) 📕

the tiny rill that fed the vine-surrounded inlet where the water was not brine.

CHAPTER XXXVII A BREATHLESS MARGIN

Grenville returned for his jugs and the torch, impatient to be employed. The clay receptacles were useless on the hill, but he carried them back to the gallery, to leave them on the floor. The lower rock-and-wattle barrier he carefully readjusted to its place, and secured with the bar of wood.

"The water below is rather poor," he informed Elaine, when he once more rejoined her above. "I believe I can reach a supply considerably better by building a bamboo platform that will give me access to a larger and fresher pool."

laine was thinking of another, more personal danger.

"Do you think these creatures have visited the cave?"

"If they have, they left no signs."

"You are not afraid they may go there soon—and discover the end of this passage?"

Grenville shook his head. "I only wish they would try—every man Jack of them hunting there at once! If it weren't for this smoke, I should try to lure them in!"

Glad of an occupation, no matter how forlorn the hope it afforded, he went promptly to work fetching all of the largest bamboo stems from his generous supply, together with wood for fuel and many lengths of creeper. By the time these various transfers were complete, he had left but little of their meager possessions in or about the former camp.

Bombs, fuses, torch-wood, and much of his extra powder he now proceeded to store along the wall, and in a niche of the gallery, where they should neither obstruct the passage under foot, nor yet be exposed to possible accident from necessary fire. The terrace continued to be wrapped in smoke, as on the previous day. Instructing Elaine to call him instantly, should any attempt be made by the Dyaks to bridge the gap on the trail, he now began the laborious task of carrying one after another of the bamboo stems down the passage to the cave.

The stems were large, some of them fully six inches through at the butt, and while they were never heavy, yet the twelve or more feet of length to which he had reduced them made their transfer through the narrow and angular gallery an awkward and troublesome maneuver, with only a torch for light.

He had made up his mind that six of these stems, lashed together in pairs, or even laid side by side, and slightly separated, would complete a float on which he could readily find sufficient buoyancy for himself and a couple of water jugs, more especially as he thoroughly intended to stretch himself out flat, full length, upon it while moving about the shore. He felt, moreover, it must be so light he could not only launch it from the cave, but even withdraw it inside again, should danger so require.

Fortunately, he reflected, none of the stems was split. Each comprised a set of water-tight compartments that a load of double his avoirdupois could hardly sink beneath the surface. If he found that four of the lengths would answer as well as six, he would certainly use no more.

As he stumbled and edged his way downward once again, with the last of his load colliding here and there along the wall, he thought, perhaps, it might be possible to test the float in the salty pool that remained in the basin of the cavern. Could this be done, much time would be saved, and no risk of being discovered at his work need be incurred.

For his greater convenience in assembling materials and tools, he placed both his torch and final burden for a moment within the passage, when he came once more to the cave. Three of the bamboo stems were then in the cavern proper, while all of the creeper and the other essentials remained on the gallery floor. He paused to wipe his brow, for he was sweating. His mouth was dry with a growing thirst that refused to be forgotten.

He had barely stepped out to survey the space for the likeliest site convenient to his needs, when, abruptly, a human voice sent a murmurous echo through the hollow tomb. A sharp command immediately followed—all in some barbaric tongue. But before the noise of something dully scraping on the outside ledge could add its confirmation to the somewhat belated alarm, Grenville was certain that a Dyak boat had come to the cavern, and its crew were about to land.

Instantly pouncing upon the nearest length of his precious bamboo, he darted with it to the passage. The second stem struck on the inner wall, not only delaying his movements, but sounding a thud that he felt must be heard through all the vast bulk of the hill.

Yet he dared not either betray the fact he had been in the cave, or lose that final pole. Once more, as he heard the Dyaks coming, and even beheld a shadow, preceding its owner to the place, he darted silently out at his door to lay hold of the last remaining stem.

He was certain its end must be plainly seen, as the Dyaks now rose above the ledge. A sound that he made seemed incredibly loud—and his door was out where the boatmen's torch must play a red light upon it!

He stumbled across his materials, now congesting his narrow space. He thrust out an arm, laid hold of his door, and had barely drawn it across the opening when the glare of the torch the Dyaks held sent red rays in upon him.

Not another move could he make without betraying his presence near at hand. To adjust the barrier solidly in place might readily prove fatal. To leave it loose, a palpable sham where all should appear as solid wall, was scarcely less of a risk.

Holding it firmly, lest it slip, and peering breathlessly out through the chink which it failed by an inch to cover, Grenville beheld three half-naked forms, incredibly magnified and diabolized not only by the torch they held, but also by the shadows they cast upon the rocks, and the general aspect of the region, black as Inferno. Three thinner, more furtive fiends of the nether abyss would have been hard, indeed, to imagine. In the tallest Sidney recognized the chief.

As they turned about to scan the wall, and the breach he had made with his explosion, the whites of their eyes and the gleam of their teeth rendered all of their faces strangely hideous, with the yellowish glare projecting them indistinctly against the ebon of the tomb.

That their keen, malicious eyes must instantly discover the wall's decided imperfection, where the gallery door was askew, seemed to Grenville inescapable. They motioned towards him, and down at the floor, in manifest wonder that the place was no longer filled with water. Their voices were low. They spoke as if with a certain awe in which the place was held.

It seemed to Grenville they would never go about their business. His muscles ached with the unaccustomed strain put upon them to support the heavy door. How long he could stand there, making no sound, and permitting no movement of the barrier, was a question he could not answer. If only his cleaver had not been dropped around the bend, beside his torch, he would almost have dared spring out on the unsuspecting Dyaks to brain them where they stood!

At thought of his torch, redly glowing, in beyond, he sweated anew, convinced that as soon as the boatmen grew accustomed to the darkness of the cavern, these torch rays must impinge upon their vision, and instantly divulge the secret of the passage to the top.

One of the Dyaks now approached even closer than before. Savagely determined he would slay the man, should he raise a hand, or otherwise give the slightest intimation that the door was seen at last, Sidney grew hot in his farthest pulse, and became as tense as a tight-coiled spring as he steadied to leap from the place.

But the man in command now grumbled another of his orders. The fellow so near discovery and death turned slowly about, made one more gesture towards the shattered ledge, and followed the other where they made their way across the uneven floor.

Until they had passed to a second ridge, where their feet disturbed a few loose fragments that rattled down towards the base, Grenville made not the slightest move to alter his position. Then cautiously, without a sound, he adjusted the door to its proper place and secured it with the bar.

He still had a chink through which to peer, but he first moved back to his blazing torch and smothered its light on the rocks. When he once more groped his way to the tiny opening, the Dyaks had come to the rifled chamber. He could hear their exclamations of disgust and anger, but only their torch could be seen.

Aware they might still return to his wall and discover the one remaining retreat where Elaine was even remotely secure, Grenville was seized with an irresistible impulse to destroy the fiends on the instant, if such a denouement could be rendered possible.

He turned about to grope his way upward and secure a bomb as swiftly as the darkness would permit. Over the basket of treasure, some time since deposited there by the wall, he blundered, and fell to his knees. The thing was in the way. He took it up impatiently and carried it well up the passage to one of the broadest galleries, where he placed it again on the floor.

With one of the smallest of his bombs, and carrying one of his firebrands only for a torch, he once more descended, feeling his way along the wall, eager to regain the lower entrance, lest it might be already discovered. He had been delayed in securing the brand, without which his bomb was useless. He had told Elaine his measures were only of defense.

They were hardly even that. When he came to the door he could see no torch, for the Dyaks had gone, in new exasperation, and their voices echoed back from the ledge. The impulse to rush out thus belatedly, ignite his fuse, and hurl his engine of destruction upon them, or their boat, was one he curbed with difficulty, at the dictates of sober sense. For a dozen reasons the maneuver might fail to destroy the murderous trio. And should one escape to advertise the fact he was somehow concealed in the cavern, no possible cleverness could avail to protect Elaine or himself.

Should a larger number come to the cave—— But he knew it was hardly likely, now, that even a few would return. If the Dyaks had, as he felt convinced, concluded that the open niche meant that the tomb had been pillaged, that the treasure was gone, either taken by himself or another, they would have no conceivable reason left for courting disaster here again. For unless they should dare approach the place by night, it was only under cover of the rolling smoke they would risk attack from above.

He even thought of hastening back to the terrace now to drop a bomb upon them. It was only a recollection of the all-engulfing smoke that halted this intent. Instead he dislodged the wooden bar, removed the door to his secret gallery, and crept out to glide to the breach in the ledge for a possible view of the boatmen.

Only the disappearing end of their craft was shown through the fumes that veiled the tide. It was Grenville's useful catamaran, as he instantly discerned. A new resentment burned in his blood, but left him as helpless as before.

CHAPTER XXXVIII GRENVILLE'S DESPERATE CHANCE

At noon Elaine reluctantly consumed the last remaining drop of water. Grenville had taken a sip, and pretended to take a swallow. To refuse it longer, Elaine quite clearly comprehended, would be but to see it ooze away through the jar, to be drunk