RÃdan The Devil And Other Stories. Louis Becke
I answered, looking longingly at the crystal water and then at the black mouth of the cavern, which neither Will nor I had ever entered.
'Then come on,' said Will, quickly, and in a few seconds we were out of our clothes, and paying no heed to 'King Billy's' exclamations of terror we dropped quietly into the water and swam across, telling him to stay where he was and keep a look-out for sharks.
A few strokes brought us safely over, and then, as we climbed up and stood on the cold rocky floor of the dark cave, our hearts began to fail us somewhat—the place was so grim, silent and terrifying.
Feeling our way carefully along, however, we advanced for some ten or twelve yards and then stopped, for though we heard the voices, we could see the figures of Harry and Trenfield but dimly.
'Where are you?' cried Will.
'Over here,' answered my brother; 'you can come along if you like. We think that there's a way of getting out by climbing up—we can see the trees on the back of the hill.'
This was a discovery indeed, and Will and I, as we made our way to where they sat, found the darkness decreasing at every step, and when we reached them, we could see about us quite plainly, for thin, dimmed shafts of sunlight penetrated the cavern from above by a narrow cleft, through which we could see not only the dark foliage of the trees, whose branches overhung the place, but a strip of blue sky.
'Listen!' said Will.
Somewhere near a 'butcher' bird was calling to its mate, who quickly answered, and then the pair whistled sweetly and joyously together; and when they ceased a bell-bird sounded his clear, resonant note thrice—then silence.
Presently Walter and Harry set about to attempt an ascent, laughing heartily at the thought of how we should startle poor 'King Billy' by reappearing out of the bowels of the earth, instead of by the way we had left him.
The top of the cleft was not more than thirty feet from the floor of the cave, and its very narrowness reduced the difficulty of climbing up its rugged sides, which were composed of pieces of rock embedded in earth. In the centre, however, the walls approached so closely to each other about half way down—within a few inches, in fact—that they were blocked up with what appeared to be a mass of decaying branches, fallen leaves and such débris.
Walter Trenfield went first, then Will, and Harry and I followed. We found it much easier working our way up than we anticipated, for the jutting points of rock gave us a good foothold, and the roots of trees, living and dead, helped us greatly, for some of these grew across from one side of the cleft to the other, and afforded us ladder-like steps.
Walter had nearly reached the mouth of the chasm, when Will, who was ascending more leisurely and carefully behind him, put his foot upon the thick mass of leaves and rotting wood which blocked up its centre, and, finding it was firm, sat down upon it to rest himself. Presently, to have some amusement at the expense of Harry and myself, who were directly beneath him, he began to shower armfuls of dead leaves upon us—then suddenly he uttered a cry of terror, sprang to his feet, and clambered quickly to the top, where Trenfield seized him just as he was about to fall.
Thinking that he had been frightened, or perhaps bitten by a black snake or a death-adder, Harry and I climbed up after him as quickly as possible, little heeding the cuts and bruises we inflicted upon our naked bodies. As soon as we reached the ledge and flung ourselves, panting and somewhat terrified, on the thick bed of leaves which covered the ground like a carpet, we saw Walter Trenfield bending his tall, naked figure over Will, who was crouched up in a heap and trying, through his sobs of terror, to tell what it was that he had seen.
'There is a dead man down there,' he gasped, 'a dead man! When I took up the last armful of leaves to throw down on Tom and Harry, I saw a dreadful face beneath … it was almost a skull, but there is some flesh on the face … and oh, Walter! it has red hair like Tom May's.' Then, overcome by the terror of that which he had seen, he sobbed afresh.
'Come,' sir,' said Trenfield to my eldest brother, 'we must go down and look.'
Leaning over the brink of the narrow cleft, I watched Harry and Trenfield descend, throw down the rotting leaves and timber which had accumulated in the centre; and then I saw a dreadful sight—a shrunken, awful face, with white, gleaming teeth, and two fleshless hands lying together upon an all but skeleton chest. The rest of the body, except one leg, which from the knee downwards was partly raised and showed a bone protruding from a rough raw-hide boot, was mercifully concealed from our sight by the coarse jumper and grey canvas trousers of a convict.
Presently Walter looked up, and cried out in a strange, hoarse voice—
'Go away, Master Tom, you must not look. Do you and Master Will wait for us on the rocks, but first tell Billy to come here with our clothes.'
Will and I at once obeyed, glad to get away, and hurrying round the base of the hill we returned to 'King Billy,' who, poor simple savage, had given us up for lost, and was crouched up in a-heap on the rocks, making a low whining noise like the cry of a very young puppy. He did truly dance for joy when he heard our voices, and then at once, without asking us what had happened, went off to Walter and Harry, taking their clothes with him.
Will and I dressed ourselves, and then we sat down to wait.
'Tom,' said Will, who had now recovered his composure, 'I am sure it is poor Tom May who is lying there. Do you remember a red silk handkerchief which mother gave him last Christmas Day? Well, there is one exactly like it round its neck. I was too frightened to look closer, but Tom always wore his handkerchief round his neck in a sailor's knot. And then, too,' and here Will's eyes filled with tears and he began to sob, 'it had bright red hair … it had nearly all fallen off, and … '
'Oh, Will,' I cried, 'don't tell me any more! I feel so sick.'
Nearly half an hour passed, and then we saw Harry and Trenfield, holding each other's hand like two children, coming towards us. They sat down near us, and then the young convict placed his big, brown hands over his face, and heavy sobs broke from his broad chest.
'Oh, God! Master Harry!' he cried, 'is there no justice in the world? To die there, in that awful place, like a rat in a trap! oh, it is dreadful, dreadful! And then I thought that he was long ago far away from here—a free man.'
'Do you think those two other men threw him down there, Walter?' asked my eldest brother, almost in a whisper.
'No, sir,' he replied, catching his breath. 'Why should they murder the man who alone was capable of taking the boat upon such a long voyage? This is what I think, sir. Poor Tom, instead of coming down in the boat with the other two, left them on Saturday and walked here so that he might light a fire on the top of Little Nobby's on Sunday night to guide them to the place. He told Ruth's father that he thought he should do this in case the night turned out very dark. And Billy says that a fire was made, and that when poor Tom was descending the hill to meet the boat he fell into the cleft and got jammed between the rocky walls.'
'But would not the two other men make a search for him?'
'God knows, sir! We shall never know. They may have thought that Tom had been captured, and that the fire had been lit by Ruth's father. But I think that Billy is right, and that poor Tom, after lighting the fire, was coming down the hill to meet the boat, when in the darkness he wandered off the track and stepped into the crack at the widest part of its mouth, which is right above where we found him. He must have fallen upon his back and become so tightly wedged in in that awful place that he could not use his arms to free himself. And then, sir, even if he had not been stunned, his cries could not have been heard by the other two men, who, unless they purposely made a search, would not have had any reason to go within two hundred yards of the spot where he fell.'
Harry shuddered, and then for some time no one of us spoke. 'King Billy' had been sent off to tell my father of the discovery of the body, or rather skeleton, which Walter and Harry had at first attempted to free from the walls of the chasm, but were too overcome to complete the task.
Together we slowly ascended the bluff, and there