Part 14

"'Ullo!" said the conductor, "not with the rest?" when at last, at the old City Cross, at the bottom of the town, Sally moved to the door. She shook her head, and was glad he did not seem to worry further about her; but it was with relief she heard the bell ring and saw him pass out of sight. There was only one more thing to be done now to avoid unwanted attention, and that was to dispose of her hat, with the Seascape band on it. In this she succeeded by thrusting it down to the bottom of a basket of remnants, at the entrance to a drapery stores. Turning away, she took her old cap out of her pocket, and dragged it on over her eyes.

Now, unless she met anyone from the school, she was safe, and could start unhampered on her expedition--an adventure if ever she had had one--but different from all her other escapades in that no love of notoriety or excitement had led her to plan it.

"I must save Tolly."

That was her one idea, the slogan that inspired her to face the Borley Caves in the damp and dusk of a late November afternoon.

She did not waste more time in Parchester than she could help, merely pausing to make certain purchases that included a lantern, some candles and matches, a piece of raw meat, wrapped in a newspaper, a bottle of milk, and a small loaf of bread. As many of these things as she could fit in she thrust into the bag she had brought, and with the rest under her arm made her way back to the old City Cross, and took the tram labelled "Borley Chine."

It was still fairly light when she reached her destination and hastened away from the rows of lodging-houses, now half empty, down the zig-zag path, towards the pebbly beach. Beyond, lay the ridge of rocks and golden sands which had made the fortunes of Parchester and its neighbourhood during the last half-century.

Sally passed very few people, and they were all coming from the shore; going back, as she recognised, to family tea-parties, round comfortable fires. The thought made her shiver. It had been easy to boast, on a summer afternoon, that she was not afraid to make her way to the Portholes, but now it was all quite different. If it hadn't been for Autolycus, and the look of entreaty in his brown eyes that continually haunted her imagination, she would have turned straight back.

As it was, she climbed steadily over the pebbles, and up the broad slope of rock and shingle that led to the opening of the largest cave. In the narrow entrance it was almost dark, and she paused, to take a last look at the misty landscape--with its deserted shore--and beyond that again at the grey-green sea, empty of any sail, tossing and turning in forlorn monotony.

"How horrible!" she said, though she usually loved the sea; and with hands that trembled lit her candle. Holding the lantern aloft, she surveyed the cave, into which a slit In the cliff admitted her.

It was a circular space, with long shafts of grey rock projecting here and there from the walls, like buttresses on the outside of a church. Water was trickling down them, and forming little pools, while tufts of fern and dank seaweed growths clung to the crevices and dripped.

"Like a vault," said Sally aloud, and jumped at the echo of her own voice, and again, as some bird flapped past her head, scurrying towards the open in terror at the unexpected sounds.

"I wonder which of us was most frightened," she said, and smiled without any amusement as, lowering the lantern, she crossed the cave and passed through the narrow doorway on the other side.

Here a passage began; almost overpoweringly damp and smelly, at times high like the vaulting of a church, at others so low that its dusty roof brushed and crumbled against her cap. Occasionally it widened out into a room, or else it turned, first at one sharp angle and then at another, until all sense of direction became lost.

Once the passage proved so stuffy that the candle, which had been burning low and dim, went out, and Sally had to grope her way until she came once more to a slit in the outer rock, letting in some light, and fresh puffs of air.

"I can't go on," she told herself, as she relit the lantern, "I can't"; but she knew that still less could she turn back, since she was even more afraid of the corners she had passed than of those that lay before her.

All the time she kept wondering where she was--near the coast, she imagined, because she could often hear the monotonous thud of the sea on the rocks, though the gathering dusk hid it from her sight.

"I must be almost under the school," she muttered at last--"I've been stumbling along here for hours and hours. I think I'll begin calling Tolly."

But instead she screamed and then screamed again.

Almost on a level with her face, the lantern had shown her bright eyes staring at her from behind a ledge of rock: and in the same flash, her imagination had pictured the ghost boy she had invented in Miss Castle's room and then forgotten. Had she invented him? Mabel Gosson had given her the idea, that summer afternoon on the beach, and perhaps he was true after all.

Perhaps ... but as Sally leaned against the wall, wiping her forehead and trying to keep herself from screaming once more, relief came. The eyes no longer stared, while the small grey body to which they evidently belonged scuttled down the ledge of rock and ran off, showing a patch of white to the lantern.

"A rabbit!" said the girl, and almost laughed, for here was her theory that the burrows were connected with the caves confirmed: and with that realisation came new courage and hope.

"Tolly!" she shouted. "Tolly! Tolly!" and went on calling as she moved forward.

As she mounted a heap of broken shale, a faint bark sounded in the distance.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH

RECONCILIATION

While Sally was making her journey of exploration through the caves, she had felt as though hours passed: it seemed weeks before, at last, she found Autolycus. The whole thing was like some hideous game of "hunt the thimble," with feeble yapping, now so faint as to be scarcely heard, and then for a moment louder, to guide her, instead of music.

The passage had by this time widened, through an entrance half-blocked with crumbling shale, into a series of caves--some of which, it was obvious, must have been used in the past as a store-house. The walls had been roughly hewn to hold shelves, broken planks lay on the ground, while some empty barrels rotted in pools.

Sally, wriggling through the half-blocked entrance to the last cave on hands and knees, only noted these things with one half of her mind, the other and more active of her brain was intent on what was now an almost continuous whine--full of misery and entreaty.

"Tolly!" she called, "Tolly! Why don't you come?"

And at last, stumbling over an old iron anchor, almost buried beneath a mass of fallen rock, she came upon him--lying on his side--pinned down by a heap of earth and loose stones.

She knelt beside him, kissing him, and he lifted his head and feebly licked her hand, gazing at her with wide brown eyes that expressed their utter confidence in her ability to put things right.

"You are quite safe, Tolly," she whispered in answer, and resting her lantern on the projecting bar of the anchor, began feverishly to clear away the debris that weighed him down. At last he was free; but as she tried to lift him, he yelped, and examining him, she found his leg was hurt.

As gently as she could she raised him, and taking off her thick coat, folded it up to form a cushion, and so made a bed for him in the driest part of the cave. Then she opened her bag, and producing a saucer and the bottle of milk, persuaded him to drink some. It was slow work at first, for the move had evidently jarred his leg, and he would do nothing but lie and whine, with his eyes shut. Gradually, however, he eased his position, and then, when he had taken a little milk, began to revive, and eagerly ate some pieces of raw meat that Sally chopped off for him with her pocket knife. His tail was wagging now, and there came at last something of his old roguish spirit in the cock of his long ears and gleam of his eyes.

"You think we are out of the wood, my lad," said his mistress rather ruefully. "It's well to have a trusting disposition," and with a little shiver she looked round the cave. It was very cold without her great-coat, though she was thankful she had had the sense to put on two warm woollen jumpers underneath as well as a thick scarf. Round her waist were folded coils and coils of rope; and Sally, as she began mechanically to unwind these, laughed, as she thought of what Jakes's indignation must have been when he discovered her theft.

Finding herself too early for the walk that afternoon, she had, on a sudden impulse, dashed round to the stable and outhouses, appropriating quite easily, since it was still Jakes's dinner hour, first a large clasp knife, that she had concealed in her bag, and then the rope, which she had hidden beneath her coat.

Would it be of any use to her? The answer seemed to depend on where she was, and as Autolycus slept--apparently exhausted--Sally lifted the lantern and began a voyage of discovery.

She was in a fairly large cave, not so damp as the one she called the entrance hall, but still in rather a ruinous condition--to judge by its heaps of splintered rock and earth. The roof, especially near the entrance, where she had scrambled through on her knees, must always have been weak, for previous visitors--presumably smugglers--had propped it up with pit-poles, and stretched a pine trunk across, that now sagged ominously over the doorway.

At the opposite side, where she had found the dog, there was a wide fissure in the rocks, filled with earth and rubble. Here the roof sloped so violently that the girl, approaching to examine it, jumped back in dismay as she realised its spongy insecurity.

"Why, it might come down any minute: it might have come down and buried Tolly and me while I was bending over him," were the thoughts that shook her nerve, and turned the caves, not merely into a place of shadowy fear, but of active, lurking danger.

Her candle had now burned very low, and Sally, while she replaced it with another--her fingers trembling as she forced them to do her will--was struck by a fresh thought. Where did the air come from that had nearly extinguished her light, since the wall against which she leaned seemed solid like the others?

Smothering the glow from the lantern with her bag, she peered about her in the dark, until, her eyes growing accustomed to the gloom, she was able to distinguish some kind of opening, a few feet above her head. A wide opening it must be--no, two--for a broad line of shadow was thrown across the cave, in the middle; and then Sally's heart gave a leap. She had reached the Portholes: and was quite close to Seascape House, if only she could make anyone hear her and come to her assistance.

Lifting the light again, she moved her hand along the wall, wondering how she could raise herself to look out--for it was no use shouting while she was in a kind of well--and then, suddenly, Autolycus whined. It was not the whine of pain, but had an undercurrent of growl in it, and Sally, as she turned back from her search, and put her hand on his back to quiet him, could feel that he was tense with excitement.

"He's heard something," she said. "Someone is coming."

Her first feeling was one of joy, for the loneliness and growing sense of insecurity had begun to tell on her nerves, and she was very near tears. Then, as she listened, conscious that there were indeed movements somewhere down the long dark passage by which she had just come, her hope turned to fresh terror. What human being could it be that visited the caves at this hour of the night? No one knew where she was--(how Sally wished, in that minute, that she had left a note for Miss Castle to explain her plan)--smugglers were an order of the past--there was no one ... no one except...

In a flash, there forced itself back into her mind the tale she had deliberately shut out earlier in the afternoon--of the boy who, wandering like herself from Borley Chine, through the labyrinth of passages, had been walled up and starved. In her excited mood he was no longer the hero of a ghost story, but a reality; and drawing a choking breath, she crouched down by the dog, and placing the bag in front of the lantern to hide its light, flattened herself against the wall.

"Quiet, Tolly!" she whispered. "Oh, do be quiet!" But he continued to growl softly, and the footsteps--for she knew they were footsteps now--to draw ever closer.

Of the next few minutes Sally had never any clear recollection. Someone shouted--shouted several times--there was a flash of light, and a sound of falling masonry, mingled with loud barking--and then the pain in her head, which had caught her sharply in the first spasm of fear, became intense and she knew no more.

When she opened her eyes, it was to see Violet Tremson staring down at her--a Violet almost as white as the handkerchief with which she was sponging her forehead.

"The ghost!" Sally gasped; and then, "Where am I?"

"I ... I think we are underneath the Portholes----"

Violet's voice was very unsteady, and the tears had begun to trickle down her face.

"I ... I thought you were dead when I found you," she said, and then the other, in sudden reaction, sat up and laughed.

"It was you who killed me.... I imagined you were the ghost--my ghost," she said; "and I suppose I fainted." She shivered.

In an instant, Violet was on her feet and taking off her own coat.

"You are to put this on at once," she said, and there was so much authority in her tone, and the younger girl was so cold, that she meekly obeyed. Her brain was working furiously now: she had begun to wonder how on earth the other had found her, and why she had come.

"I ... don't understand," she began, but Violet, with a frown, only said--"Presently." She had a soft plaid rug that she wound round her own shoulders, and tied under her arms. This done, she opened a wide rush basket, and began taking out first a huge thermos, and then some buns in a bag.

"Coffee," she said, and pouring some into a mug, made Sally drink from it, afterwards drinking herself.

"Now we shan't get chilled straight off, while we make plans," she said. "And there's more left if we want it. Feel better?"

"Lots, thank you. It was just the fright and finding Tolly hurt."

Violet nodded, and turning the lantern towards the dog, began to feel his leg, with gentle, capable fingers--while he whined softly, and tried to lick her hand.

"I think it's broken," she said at last. "Not badly--but it ought to be set--I wonder where we could get a splint."

She got up from her knees and began to look, and Sally, as she flashed the lantern round the cave, gave an exclamation of horror.

"The door!" she said. "Why, it has fallen in."

"I know--it nearly fell on top of me, because my electric torch went out, and in the dark I caught the rug round one of the props, as I scrambled through, and pulled it too hard trying to get it free. That's what made me so funky and shaken--that, and finding you, as I thought, dead."

She gave a thin little laugh, without much mirth in it, and went to pick up the broken prop.

"A bit of it might do, if I had a decent knife," she said, and gave an exclamation of joy, as Sally produced the gardener's out of her bag.

"You really have the pioneering instinct, Sally, and you ought to emigrate. Imagine thinking of a knife! And I suppose you brought that coil of rope."

The younger girl nodded shyly. "You ought to be a prophet," she said. "Or the Delphic oracle person. How did you know I was here?"

Violet flushed. "Well, I didn't. But I guessed when we met Mademoiselle in the High Street with Pat Dolby, and she thought you were with us, and I knew you hadn't been. She was in an awful state about you."

"Poor Mademoiselle! She's very nice most times, isn't she? But so excitable."

"Fireworks weren't in it," said the elder girl placidly. "Anyhow, while they fired, I went round quietly and borrowed all the money the others had got, so as to get the thermos, the rug and coffee. I told them to tell her (when she allowed them to speak) that I knew where you were, and would bring you along--and just vanished."

"But how did you know?" persisted Sally. "I never told you anything."

"Frisky did--I mean about your thinking the dog had got into the caves: then I remembered your ghost story about the Chine, and put two and two together. You said, out there on the cliffs, it was the only way to get him."

They were silent, while Violet measured the stick. Afterwards, with Sally holding the lantern, she set Tolly's leg as well as she could, and fastened it to the splint, binding it up with her school tie and hat-band.

"Now he's got the colours," she said, "and I know he'll deserve them--the darling--for he is wagging his tail, although I hurt him."

It was true. Tolly had whined a little while the operation was going on, but now he was evidently satisfied that what had been done was intended for his good, and when Violet bent over to kiss him, he licked her face--then looked up at them both expectantly, and barked.

"He now imagines," said Violet, "that we will waft him back on a magic carpet to his stables or the vet., and how is it going to be done, kid?"

Sally turned and looked at her with a start. "I don't know," she said absently. "I was just thinking--why did you come, Violet? You ... you hated me."

"No, never," said Violet quietly--and then, "Sally, do you want me to have to apologise for what I said the other day?"

The younger girl stared. "I ... I loathe apologies," she said, "and why on earth should you? I had been beastly to you several times, and you had a right to snub me; only, that evening when I apologised, I wasn't toadying, you know--really, I wasn't--it was just I had been so happy with you all, and Miss Castle, and I wanted to make things straight."

"Yes--and then I went and damped all your happiness down, and was a sanctimonious liar, and said I hadn't minded what you did. I could have kicked myself that night."

Violet had risen to her feet, and was walking backwards and forwards, with more emotion in her pale face than Sally had ever seen there before.

"It's all right, Violet," she said awkwardly. "Don't mind like that. I've been much ruder to you than you ever have been to me. Let's just forget it all."

Violet laughed. "It would be the simplest thing to do, but one's got to have some kind of an explanation. I liked you from the first, kid--I don't know why--(certainly not from Cousin Alice's description)," she added, with a twinkle, "but just because, I suppose, one falls into friendship as into love."

"I know," said Sally, nodding; "as I did over Peter--only I've fallen out again, as you said you did."

"Exactly--and then, though I liked you, it was obvious you didn't like me---and that wasn't your fault, and I didn't blame you till you asked me that afternoon if I had no pride. It got me on the raw, because I suppose I hadn't any pride, the way I had pursued you."

"No! no! no!" said Sally, protesting. "It was beastly of me, but I felt so ill and horrible that afternoon, I wanted to say something to hurt somebody." And she began to talk about her sprained foot, and Roger having seen Peter at the party.

While she spoke there came the sound of a faint whistle, and Tolly started to bark.

"It's from outside," said Violet. "Perhaps they've guessed we are here. Now, how on earth are we to let them know?" And she and Sally gazed up in silence at the three feet or more of rock between them and the Portholes.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIFTH

RESCUE

It was Sally who first discovered the way up to the Portholes--steps, or rather notches, cut in the side of the rock, into which it was possible to put one's feet--and then, as she mounted these, with Violet supporting her from below, her hand came suddenly into contact with a chain and rings, suspended from the wall above. Evidently the chain had once been longer, but was now broken. By grasping it, she was able to pull herself up until she could place her knee on the lower ledge of one of the Portholes, and crouching there, look out, and down.

"Hi! Hi!" she screamed excitedly, and taking the lantern from Violet, waved it backwards and forwards across the opening.

[Illustration: "HI! HI!" SHE SCREAMED EXCITEDLY]

Instantly there was an answering shout, and she saw the flash of an electric torch.

"There are several of them," she said, and then--"Oh one of them is Jakes. Mustn't he be mad at having to come and find Tolly here, after all?" And she giggled.

"Do him good," retorted Violet. "But I say, move along if you can, and I'll come up too. I wonder who the rest are?"

"Miss Castle, for one--of course--I bet."

And then Sally gave a shout of joy. "It is Miss Castle! Oh, hurrah, Miss Castle, I've found Tolly." And she put her hands together to make a megaphone.

The little group on the shore below was drawing nearer, and finally mounted to the ledge of rocks below the barbed wire, where Sally had once eaten her tea, and contemplated climbing up. Their expressions, seen in the fitful moonlight, were anxious, and when she waved her arms, Miss Castle stepped forward, and told her to be careful.

"Are you there too, Violet?" she asked; and as the elder girl said "Yes," she answered "Thank God!" so fervently that they both felt rather abashed--realising the anxiety they had caused.

"Would it be easier to return as you came, or try to get down from where you are?" demanded another voice.

"Proggins!" whispered Sally; and it was indeed Miss Rogers, in her gym. dress, while beside her was Jakes, staring at them in too much consternation to find his usual flow of words.

"We can't return as we came, Miss Rogers, the door of the cave has fallen in, but Sally has got a rope."