CHAPTER V.

LOST IN THE LABYRINTH.

We landed on a little rocky platform close to a narrow passage not much larger than the companion-way of the Swansea, which led into what was evidently the dry part of the cave. We followed this passage a little distance, finding it widening all the time till we came to a great gallery, wide and high, in which there stood three wooden chests. Two of them were open and empty, but the third contained a great quantity of excellent candles of all sorts; some of them were of wax and at least two feet long, and must have been stolen from some church altar. In the empty chests Blackbeard had doubtless kept his treasure, for I picked up, close to the chests, a small piece of gold which had been dropped there. But I was more pleased to see the candles than I should have been to have found the chests full of diamonds, for I knew our lantern must be nearly burnt out, and that without a light we should never be able to find our way out of the cave.

“There’s a way out of here,” said old Bill, “and we’ll find it if the candles last long enough. It’s this way, you see: Blackbeard has been here and took away his treasure. Now, he didn’t take it away in the skiff, for that he sunk, and he must have sunk it on purpose. Besides, I saw where the water runs out of this pool, and the channel is too small for the skiff. So, you see, there’s a way out of the cave that Blackbeard knowed of, and all we’ve got to do is to follow it.”

There was so much reason in what he said that I felt quite easy about our escape. But by this time Tom’s arm had began to pain him a good deal. It was swollen and stiff. He made light of it, but I could see that he was feverish and tired, and I wanted to save him from any unnecessary work. So I told him that Bill and I would leave him to rest while we searched for the way out of the cave, and that as he had plenty of candles he need not feel lonesome. Tom was very ready to rest, and said that he would lie down and try to sleep awhile.

While we were talking the lantern suddenly went out, and I had great difficulty in lighting a candle with the flint and steel, for my tinder was damp. But I succeeded at last, and lighted three candles—one for each of us. Then Bill and I stuffed some biscuits in our clothes, and leaving the guns and everything else with Tom, we set forth to explore the cave.

At first we had no trouble, for all we had to do was to follow the gallery we were in, but presently we came to other galleries, great and small, leading out of it, and we could not tell which one to follow.

However, we chose a large one and followed it for about half a mile, as nearly as I could judge. It was very crooked, and we very soon were so confused by its many windings that we could not tell in which direction we were going. Then we came to more galleries, leading out of the one in which we were. Sometimes we would follow one of these till we would come to the end of it and would have to turn back; and once, after wandering for miles, we came to a place where we could see our footprints in the sand, and so perceived that we had made no progress during all that time, but had only got back to the place from which we had started an hour before.

The floor of the cave was for the most part covered with dry sand, but occasionally it was wet and muddy. In one of these wet places I slipped and dropped my candle into the water, so that now we had only one left. We were getting rather tired, but there was nothing for it but to keep on till we could find our way out.

We had talked together very briskly when we first started, but now that we had become uneasy neither of us cared to talk. We knew that we were lost in an enormous cave, that we had only one candle, and that unless we could find the outlet, or the place where we had left Tom, we should be almost certain to die in the dark. But neither of us cared to say so lest we should discourage the other; so we trudged on in silence.

I began to think how frightened Tom would be if his candle should burn out while he was asleep, and he should wake up in the darkness; but I remembered that he had the flint and steel, for I had accidentally left them on the lid of a chest, near the biscuit, and that he would be sure to find them. Of course he would be alarmed when we did not return, but I felt sure that he would know we had been lost and that he would search for us and perhaps find us before we had perished.

We met nothing that was alive in the cave, except in one large hall, if I may call it so, where there were thousands of bats. This encouraged me, for I thought that the bats would be sure to live somewhere near the entrance to the cave, so that they could easily fly out; but we could not find any way out of the hall except through the passage by which we had entered it. Once we came to a little stream of water, only an inch or two wide, and we tried to follow it, but it soon lost itself in a crevice of the rock.

We had now tramped so long that we were completely exhausted, and Bill proposed that we should rest a few minutes and eat a bit of cracker. He knew as well as I did that we must not waste the little time that would remain to us before our candle would burn out, but we were too tired to keep on our feet. So we lay down, ate a few mouthfuls, and swallowed a little water from the stream, and then resumed our journey.

“We may be near your brother,” said the old man, all of a sudden. “Let’s hail him, and perhaps he will hear us.”

We shouted at the top of our lungs, but there was no answer except the echoes. For all that I can tell, Tom may have been fifteen miles away.

“How long will the candle burn?” I asked, after we had given up the effort to make Tom hear.

“Well, not more than half an hour,” replied Bill, “and probably it won’t burn that long.”

“Then we must walk faster, for we can’t do anything in the dark.”

We walked as fast as our tired legs would let us, Bill at the same time sheltering the candle with his hand, so that it would not be blown out by the wind caused by our movements. Still there seemed to be no end to the cave; there were hundreds of bewildering passages. At last Bill stopped. The candle was now too short to be held in the fingers; he placed it on the ground.

“You mustn’t be disheartened, young master,” said the old man, “but the time’s come when we can’t do no more, but wait till your brother comes for us. I’m going to turn in and take a sleep; and if you’ll take my advice you’ll do the same thing.”

So saying, the old man stretched himself on the sand and fell asleep at once. I followed his example, but I could not sleep, for I could not take my eyes off the candle. It was so horrible to think that in a few moments we should be in the darkness. I thought of the poor miners that are sometimes buried alive, and knew how they must dread to see their lamps burn out.

The candle burned longer than I thought it could. All the wax melted, and the little piece of wick fell over in a pool of hot wax, but still it continued to burn. Suddenly the flame vanished, and a dim little spark smouldered for a while and then went out, leaving us in total darkness.

I was so very tired, that in spite of my misery I fell asleep, and have no idea how long I slept. I woke up finally feeling rather stiff, and in a low voice asked Bill if he was awake. He said he had been awake a long while, but that he had not moved for fear of disturbing me.

“We’re in an awful scrape,” I said to my companion, “and you were a good deal better off before we found you, for you weren’t altogether in the dark.”

“But I was all alone, young master,” Bill replied, “and I’d a great sight sooner be here alongside of a human being than stark alone in my old cave. And don’t you get faint-hearted. We’ll get out of this, yet.”

I did not answer, for I had nothing to say, and after a little the old man said,

“Mayhap you can lay your hand to a prayer or two, young master. You’ve been brought up ashore.”

I was astonished and ashamed that I who had been piously brought up should be advised to pray by a wicked old pirate. It is true I had already prayed that we might be delivered from our great danger, but I had been ashamed to pray out loud.

“Certainly I know some prayers, Bill,” I said.

“Then,” said he, “if you’ll kindly shove ahead with them, I’ll take my turn when you’re through. You ought to come before me, being a young gentleman, and handy with prayers; whereas, I don’t know a single prayer except one that I knocked together myself when I was alone here, before you came, and I know it ain’t very ship-shape. But then, you see I never had any bringin’ up, and of course pirates don’t carry chaplains along with them.”

I kneeled down in the dark and prayed aloud to God to have mercy on us and bring us once more to the blessed daylight.

When I had finished I could hear Bill getting upon his knees, and then he said, “Lord, if you’ll only get me out of this I’ll turn over a new leaf and never go to sea again, except in an honest trade. Amen.”

“I know very well,” said Bill, “that it ain’t a first-class prayer, but it works well, and it’s bound to get us out of here. Now, if we only had a Bible, and a candle to read it by, we’d be as nice and comfortable as you could wish.”

“Bill,” said I, “that piracy was an awful business. How could you have ever followed it?”

“Well, I know it wasn’t right, and I’m never goin’ back to it again, for I’ve passed my word, and what I’ve said I sticks to. But, you see, I’d made a cruise in a man-of-war, and two or three cruises in a privateer, and I couldn’t see much difference between them and a pirate. However, that’s all done with now, and I’m goin’ to lead an honest life, and I’ll get a wife as can read the Bible, and I’ll knock off rum, and I’ll get a berth as sextant of a church yet, you see if I don’t.”

I couldn’t help remembering that Bill had talked quite differently when we first met him, but perhaps he was excited then, and did not mean all he said. Of course I could not agree with him that piracy was not much worse than privateering or any other lawful business, but it would have been foolish to expect an old and ignorant pirate to have right ideas about everything. However, I couldn’t help but see that in one thing this poor old man was better than I was, for he was not ashamed to pray, and I had been ashamed to propose such a thing to him. So I learned one useful lesson of him, at any rate.

Of course we could not tell whether it was day or night, and indeed in that dark place, it made little difference which it was, but I felt sure that Tom must be awake, and must be in search of us. I proposed to Bill that we should call out at the top of our voices every few minutes, and he agreed to it; but just as we were going to begin we heard a dull noise, that echoed for several minutes, so it seemed to us, through the cave.

“That’s Tom’s gun,” I exclaimed. “Now, Bill, let’s answer him.”

We both called “Tom!” as loud as we possibly could; then after waiting till I had counted two hundred we called again. We had done this perhaps half a dozen times when we heard Tom’s voice answering us, and after a long time he found the way to us with a light.

Though he was slow he always had good judgment, and when he found that we did not come back, he knew our candles must be burnt out and that we were helpless in the dark. So he loaded himself down with candles and came in search of us. He had also brought some more biscuit, for he knew we must be hungry.

We ate the biscuit and then set out to find our way back to the landing-place to get the other gun, for, on account of his wounded arm, Tom had only brought one gun; and as he insisted that he could find the way back without any trouble, we resolved to go back, get the gun, and take a fresh start.

“How are you going to find the way back?” I asked Tom, feeling a little doubtful if he could do it.

“Easy enough,” he answered. “Every time I made a turn while I was looking for you I made a mark on the side of the cave with a candle.”

“That’s what we ought to have done, only we didn’t think of it,” said I.

“It’s what Blackbeard did, for he wouldn’t have taken the chance of losing himself,” said Bill. “If his marks are on the rocks yet all we’ll have to do is to follow them.”

Tom led us back without much trouble to the landing-place, for at every turn we found a smear of candle grease pointing in the way we were to go. We took the gun, and as many more candles as we could carry, and began to search the sides of the cave for Blackbeard’s marks.

We could find no marks made by candles, but before long we found a cross scratched in the rock, where another gallery opened out of the one we were in, and after that we always found the same mark whenever we came to a fresh turning.

We had not traveled a long distance, perhaps not more than half a mile, when we saw daylight. It was very dim at first, but as we approached it the cave gradually lighted up, and soon we came to an opening through which we could see the blue sky.

It was a small opening, just large enough for a man to squeeze through, but when we had passed through it we found ourselves on a side hill that was covered with a thick growth of bushes. In the valley below we saw the tops of great trees, and in one place we caught a glimpse of a bit of water. This time I was not afraid, but I fell on my knees and thanked God that we were safe.