Four galleries centred on the rock-chamber, and the confused, tumultuous rush of feet which followed the blast of the conch-shell like an ominous echo, proceeded from that particular gallery opposite the vestibule.
“Seems to be a rare lot of them; but we needn't stop to reckon 'em up,” said Jack, with a constrained laugh. “Lead the way, old fellow.”
Into the smaller chamber they dashed, to find the exit blocked by the sentinel with sword drawn. Rapidly reversing his musket, Don bore down upon him—he, to do him justice, standing his ground bravely,—and with the butt-end of the weapon dealt the nigger a blow in the stomach that doubled him up like a broken bulrush.
“Where are the others?” cried Jack, as they rounded the shoulder of rock separating the antechamber from the passage. “You never came alone!”
“No; I left them just here—told them to wait,” said Don, peering about in search of the blacks. “They must have gone back; thought they'd save their skins while they could, I suppose, the chicken-hearted beggars! Ha, here's Bosin, at any rate.”
Swinging the monkey upon his shoulder, he set off at a run down the passage, Jack following as close as the weight of the chain would allow him, to do. They had proceeded only a short distance when a faint, sepulchral shout brought them to a stand. The sound seemed to proceed from a gallery on their immediate right. The way out did not lie in that direction.
“That's Pug's wheeze,” said Don. “They've taken the wrong turning;” and he drew a deep breath to answer the call.
Jack interposed quickly. “Stop! The natives will be down on us soon enough without, that. Off with you, old fellow, and fetch' pur party back. I'll wait here.”
Already Don was racing down the side passage. Presently Jack heard him jitter a cautious “hullo.” A short silence followed then the echoes told him that the fugitives were hastily retracing their steps. At the same moment a confused uproar burst on his ears from the direction of the chamber in his rear. The pursuing mob had turned the angle of the passage and were actually in sight. The chain attached to Jack's leg clanked impatiently. He fairly danced with excitement. That ill-advised move on the part of the blacks had almost proved fatal to their sole chance of escape.
But not quite; for now Don and the blacks came up, Jack joined them, and, with the oncoming thunder of many feet loud in their ears, away they sped, running as they alone can run who know that death is at their heels.
Two circumstances favoured them so long as the race was confined to the cramped limits of the corridors: the smallness of their own number, and the multitude of their pursuers. Where four could run with ease, forty wasted their breath in fighting each other for running room.
“We must put the pit between us and-these howling demons while they're tumbling over each other in the passage here,” cried Don.
It was their only hope. Racing on by Jack's side, close on-the heels of the blacks, he rapidly explained to his chum—who knew nothing of the pit, having been brought into the rock by a more circuitous route—the nature of the contemplated manoeuvre; and gave Spottie and Puggles their instructions how to act, backed up by a wholesome threat of summary abandonment to the enemy should they shirk when it came to the crucial point, the plank. The blacks were to cross first, Jack next; while he, Don, would cover their retreat as best he could. To this arrangement Jack could raise no demur. He was too seriously handicapped by the chain.
A final spurt, and they cleared the tunnel and reached the pit. The plank lay where they had left it. Across it ran their only road to safety. At a significant signal from Don Spottie led off, and, when he had reached the further side in safety, Puggles followed in his tracks. Doffs threat, coupled with the ominous uproar belched forth by the mouth of the tunnel, eclipsed all fear of the crocodiles.
“Now, Jack,” cried Don, ere the plank had ceased to vibrate under Puggles's tread, “after you.”
Jack crossed, and Don was in the act of stepping on the unstable bridge, when the foremost of the native gang burst from the gallery. One swift backward glance—a glance that stowed him how alarmingly narrow was the margin between escape and capture—and with outstretched arms he balanced himself on the handbreadth of plank—it was scarcely more—and began the perilous passage. Swift as was this backward glance, it sufficed to show him, too, that the leader of the pursuit was none other than the escaped lascar; and ere he had traversed half the plank's length, he felt it yield and rebound beneath the quick tread of the fellows feet. At the same instant Jack raised a warning shout.
There are moments when the strongest nerve quails, the steadiest head swings a little off its balance, the surest foot slips. Such a moment did this prove for Don. The disconcerting vibration of the plank, the knowledge that the lascar was at his very back, Jack's sudden shout—these for an instant conspired against and overcame his natural cool-headedness. He made a hurried step or two, staggered, and, his foot catching in the rope where it encircled the plank a short distance from the end, he stumbled and fell.
Fell! but in falling dislodged the end of the plank which lay behind him, and on which the lascar stood, from its hold upon the further brink of the pit. The lascar, throwing up his arms with a despairing shriek, plunged headlong into the pool, where he was instantly seized upon by the ravenous crocodiles and torn limb from limb.
0223
And now, if ever, did the “Providence that sits up aloft” watch over Don. Almost miraculously, as it seemed, instead of plunging into the horrible death-trap below, he fell astride the plank, the hither end of which still retained its hold upon the rock at an angle of perhaps sixty-five degrees; and up this steep incline—whither Bosin had already preceded him—with Jack's assistance he managed to scramble. Then they laid hold upon the plank and dragged it from the pit, amid the furious howling of the baffled rabble debouching from the tunnel opposite.
“Safe over, at any rate,” panted Don. “But—good heavens! what's become of the lascar?” For, suspended as he had been between life and death, he had neither heard the lascar's shriek nor witnessed the horrible manner in which he had received his quietus at the jaws of the crocodiles.
Jack pointed out a bright crimson blotch on the surface of the pool. “We've seen the last of him, poor devil,” said he with a shudder. “Say, did I tell you—no, of course I didn't—that this fellows not my lascar?”
“What, not the lascar who's been hounding us all this time?”
“The lascar who's been hounding us on the island here—yes; but not the one who tried to brain me on board the cutter and got the knife for his pains. That chap kicked the bucket shortly after he got ashore; this fellow's his brother. They're as like as two peas.”
Don vented his astonishment in a shrill whistle. “Then that accounts for it,” said he; “for there being no scar on his shoulder, I mean.”
“Precisely; and it came jolly near accounting for yours truly as well,” said Jack, with a queer little laugh and a significant shrug of the shoulders. “This fellow, you see—the one who was just now eaten by the crocodiles—raised a sort of vendetta against us when his brother died, and of course he wanted to try his hand on me first, since it was I who gave his brother his death-blow. He'd have done it, too, if it hadn't been for old Salambo. But the old man put his foot down—I overheard their talk last night, and that's how I know—and said he wouldn't allow any violence, lucky for me. He was hoping for overtures from you, I suppose. But I say, what's this about the scar? How do you know there was none on the fellow's shoulder?”
“How do I know? Why, you see, it was this way. I was swimming the creek yesterday morning—you shall hear how that came about later on, by the way—when the lascar,” indicating the crimson blotch on the pool, “tried to throttle me. I had to knock him on the head to quiet him. Then I towed him ashore, and the captain and I——”
“The captain!” cried Jack with a start. “By Jove, we've left him behind!”
The wild hurry-scurry and excitement of the last half-hour had afforded Don scant opportunity for speaking of the captain's sad end—had, indeed, driven all thought of the old sailor from his mind, as it also had from Jack's. Now that the captain was mentioned, however, Jack, naturally enough, jumped to the conclusion that he had formed one of the rescue party, and had been overlooked in their recent precipitate flight. The time was now come when he must be undeceived; but when Don attempted to disclose the sad truth emotion choked his utterance, and he could not. But Jack, gazing into his convulsed face, instinctively read there what his lips refused to utter.
“When did it happen?” he asked in a hushed, awed whisper. “And how?”
Controlling his voice with an effort, “Only last night,” faltered Don; “the lascar did it.”
Jack turned away and buried his face in his hands.
“He was strangled,” Don presently resumed, “strangled with that cord you see tied to the rope there. Afterwards, when the lascar gave me the slip, as he did in the night, he took the cord with him; but Bosin somehow recovered it and fetched it back. I little guessed how it would serve the lascar out when I used it to bridge the pit!”
“Retribution!” cried Jack, flinging his hands impulsively away from his face. “He's rightly served, the villain. Only”—regretfully—“I wish it had been me instead of the cord, that's all. But it's done, anyhow, so let's get out of this.”
And it was time; for during this conversation the natives had not been idle. At this very moment, indeed, a number of them rushed shouting from the tunnel, bearing other planks with which to bridge the chasm. Don and his chum did not wait to see this done. Without further loss of time they set out for the creek, in which direction the blacks had already preceded them.
Hardly had they entered the tunnel, however, when they encountered the blacks, running back full pelt; and before Don could inquire the cause of their precipitate return, a shout, reverberating up the vaulted corridor from the semi-darkness ahead, made inquiry unnecessary. While he and Jack had dallied in fancied security, the natives, skirting the pit by another route, had cut off their retreat.
And, as if to increase the consternation caused by this discovery, at the same instant a chorus of yells in their rear announced that the party in pursuit had succeeded in bridging the pit anew.
