_ CHAPTER XXV. WITHIN THE EARTH
It was like a terrible dream, and, for an instant or more, during which Fred Munson was descending through the gloom and darkness, he believed it was such indeed; but he was quickly recalled from his error by his arrival at the end of his journey. The truth was that the boy, in crawling beneath the clump of bushes for shelter, would have crawled head first into the mouth of the cave, but for the fact that the ground immediately surrounding the opening gave way beneath his weight before he reached it.
His fall was not very far, and when he struck the ground, it was so soft and yielding that he was scarcely conscious of a jar; but the nervous shock was so great that, for a few minutes, he believed that he was fatally injured.
When he was able to recall his scattered senses, he looked around him in the hope of gaining some idea of where he was; but he quickly saw that he was in a place where his eyes were of no service. The darkness was as impenetrable as that which plagued Pharoah and his Egyptians. Only when he looked upward was the blackness of darkness relieved. Enough straggling rays worked their way through the bushes to give the opening a dim, misty appearance, such as is sometimes observed when that orb is rising in a cloud of fog and vapor; but in every other direction he might as well have been blind, for all the good his eyes did him.
One of the first things that struck the lad was the sound of the waterfall which he had heard so distinctly when stretched upon the earth. It was somewhere near him--so close, even, that he fancied he could feel the dampness from it, but the soft, rippling character showed that it did not amount to much. It was a mere cascade, the water of which entered and passed out the cavern by some means which the boy could only surmise.
How extensive was this cave?
Had it any outlet other than that by which Fred had entered? Was the flow even or irregular? Were there pitfalls and abysses about him, making it too perilous to attempt to grope about in the gloom?
Having entered, how was he to make his way out again?
Such questions as these presented themselves to the boy, as he stood alone in a world of night, and endeavored to consider the situation calmly. Stooping down, he felt of the soil. It was of a cold, sandy nature, and so yielding that, when he struck it, he went below his ankles.
He stood for some time, debating whether he should remain where he was until the coming of day, in the hope of gaining additional light, or whether he should venture upon a little cautious exploration. He finally decided upon the latter.
"When the elephant goes on a bridge, he feels of it with his trunk to see whether it is strong enough to bear him, and I'll use my gun to do the same thing."
This was no more than a simple precaution, and doubtless saved his life. Grasping the stock firmly, he reached the muzzle forward, and "punched" the ground pretty thoroughly before venturing upon it, making sure that it was capable of bearing him safely forward into the darkness beyond.
Generally speaking, the ground of the cavern was tolerably even. There were little irregularities here and there, but none of them were of a nature to interfere with walking, provided one could have enough light to see where he was going.
"If I only had a lantern, I could get round this neighborhood a good deal faster than this," he said. "It wouldn't be anything more than fun to explore this cave, which may be as big as the mammoth one of Kentucky."
Up to this time Fred had been moving almost directly away from the cascade which he had noticed. The misty light over his head served somewhat as a guide, and he determined not to wander away from that, which would prevent his getting lost in the bowels of the earth. The boy was quite confident that there was some easy way of getting out of the cave; for if there was none, except by the opening above, then he was in a Bastile, most surely.
It was undoubtedly the cascade which added to this conviction, for it seemed to him more than likely that if the water entered and left the cave, the volume which did so must be of a varying quantity, so that at certain seasons it was capable of carrying a boy with it. This, of course, was extremely problematical, but it was hopeful enough to prevent anything like despair taking possession of the lad as he felt his way around the cavern.
"Every stream finds its way to the daylight after a time, and so must this, and why can't it take a fellow along with it? That's what I should like to know---"
He paused, with a gasp of amazement, for at that moment the gun went out of his hand as suddenly as if some one in waiting had grasped the muzzle and jerked it away.
But there was no human agency in the matter. While punching the surface, he had approached a vast abyss, and the thrust over the edge was so unexpected that the impulse carried it out of his hand.
As the boy stood amazed and frightened, he heard the weapon going downward, Heaven could only tell where. First it struck one side, and then another, the sound growing fainter and fainter, until at last the strained and listening ear failed to hear it at all. The depth of the opening was therefore enormous, and Fred shuddered to think how nearly he had approached, and by what a hair's breadth he had escaped a terrible death.
At this juncture, the boy suddenly recalled that he had some friction matches in his possession. He was not in the habit of carrying them, but several days before he had carefully wrapped up a half-dozen, with the intention of kindling a fire in the wood near New Boston. From that time until the present he had failed to remember the circumstance, although he had so frequently felt the need of a light.
He found a half-dozen securely wrapped about with a piece of newspaper, and he carefully struck one.
The moment the point flickered into a flame he held it forward and looked downward.
There was the chasm, which came so nigh swallowing him, in the shape of a seam or rent some three or four feet in width. It had the appearance of having been caused by some convulsion of nature, and it extended at right angles to the course he was pursuing, beyond the limit of his vision. If necessary, it could be leaped over, but the explorer deemed it unwise to do so just then.
Now that he had the means at command, Fred decided to look after the cascade, the sound of which was a guide. His gun was irrevocably gone, and his progress, therefore, became the more tedious. Disliking to creep, he adopted the plan of advancing one step, and then groping around awhile with the other foot, before trusting his weight upon it. This consumed considerable time, but it was the only safe course, after what had taken place, and he kept it up until the musical murmur of the waterfall showed that he had approached about as close as possible.
He then struck another match and held it over his head. It told the whole story.
A stream, not more than three or four feet in width, issued from the darkness, and, flowing some distance, went over a ledge of rock. After falling three or four yards, upon some black and jagged rocks, it gathered itself together and resumed its journey into and through the gloom. The tiny flame was unequal to the task of showing where the water entered and left the cave, and, as the boy was straining his eyesight in the hope of discovering something more, the blaze scorched his fingers, he snapped it out.
"That leaves only four," he mused, as he felt of the lucifers, "and I haven't got enough to spare. I can't gain much by using them that way, and so I guess I'll hold on to these, and see whether the daylight is going to help me."
He picked his way carefully along until he was nearly beneath the opening which had admitted him, where he sat down upon the dry, sandy ground to await the light of the sun.
"I don't suppose it will help much, for the bushes up there will keep out pretty much of the sunlight that might have come through; but I guess I'll have plenty time to wait, and that's what I'll do."
He fell into a sort of doze, lulled by the music of the cascade, which lasted until the night was over. As soon as he awoke, he looked upward to see how matters stood.
The additional light showed that the day had come, but it produced no perceptible effect upon the interior of the cave. All was as dark--that is, upon the bottom--as ever. It was only in the upper portion that there was a faint lighting-up.
Fred could see the jagged edges of the opening, with some of the bushes bent over, and seemingly ready to drop down, with the dirt and gravel clinging to their roots. The opening was irregular, and some four or five feet in extent, and, as near as he could estimate, was some thirty feet above his head.
"If I happened to come down on a rock, I might have got hurt; but things down here were fixed to catch me, and it begins to look as though they were fixed to hold me, too."
His situation was certainly very serious. He had no gun or weapons of any kind other than a common jack-knife, and it looked very much as if there was no way for him to get out the cave again without outside assistance, of which the prospect was exceedingly remote.
He was hungry, and without the means of obtaining food.
The berries, which had acted so queerly with him the day before, were beyond his reach.
Vegetation needs the sunlight, as do all of us, and it is useless to expect anything edible below.
"Unless it's fish," thought Fred, aloud. "I've heard that they find them in the Mammoth Cave without eyes, and there may be some of the same kind here; but then I'm just the same as a boy without eyes, and how am I going to find them?"
The more he reflected upon his situation, the more disheartened did he become. He had been given many remarkable deliverances in the past few days, and although his faith was strong that Providence would bring him out of this last predicament, his heart misgave him as he considered it in all its bearings.
"The best thing I can do is to try and gather some wood together, and start a fire. If there is enough fuel, I may kindle a lantern that will show me something in the way of a new door--Halloa! what is the matter?"
His attention was attracted by the rattling of gravel and dirt at his side, and looking up, he saw that something was struggling in the opening above, having been caught apparently in precisely the same manner as he had been.
His first supposition was that it was a wild animal, but the next moment he observed that it was a person, most probably an Apache warrior. And by the time Fred had learned that much, down came his visitor. _