_ CHAPTER XV. THE PRISONER IN THE CAVE
"Harry, this is the most astonishing place I ever was in in all my life."
"It certainly is wonderful, Old King Brady."
The detectives were gazing in amazement where the lights of their lanterns rested, and beheld a wonder of nature very seldom seen.
In the first place, they were in a huge cavern of circular shape.
The flight of stairs wound around one of the walls, and beside the bottom step there was a yawning hole in the ground fifty feet in diameter.
It seemed to go straight down into the earth.
Harry picked up a big stone and dropped it into the opening.
They listened intently, but failed to hear it strike bottom in the pit.
"This hole must be of enormous depth!" the boy exclaimed, "else we would have heard that stone hit the bottom."
"Look at the church organ rising up from the depths against that side of the abyss," said Old King Brady, pointing across the chasm.
His light rested upon a number of stalactites forming what looked exactly like the pipes of an enormous organ.
Beneath them was a bank of keys.
The silence of death prevailed.
Nature had wrought a wonderful formation there.
The entire interior of the cave was pure white, looking like camphor.
Huge pendants like great icicles hung from the ceiling, and similar formations rose from the floor.
In some cases the ends of the pendants nearly touched the points of the stalagmites rising from the bottom, and not a few were dropping pure, clear water, which formed little pools that ran in rivulets to the great well, and there vanished in the bowels of the earth.
It was quite cold there, yet there was a strong, fresh, invigorating taste to the air, which was agreeable to the lungs.
At various parts of the walls were other natural formations, and among them, in a niche, the figure of a woman holding a child.
"For beauty, the Mammoth Caves of Kentucky cannot compare with this place," said Young King Brady, in tones of delight.
"We are forgetting our object," said the old officer.
"True. But no one is in this place."
"Let us see if there are not adjoining caverns."
"Explore those openings in the wall."
He pointed at an arched aperture, and they crept into it on their hands and knees, and went ahead a dozen yards, then paused.
They were on the brink of another chasm.
A rift split the passage in two crosswise.
It looked as if some convulsion of nature had ripped the earth apart, and they crept back to the main cavern and tried another opening.
It was possible to stand upright in this place.
The passage wound and zigzagged.
Following it for some distance, they suddenly caught view of a lurid glare ahead as they turned an abrupt bend, and halted.
"Put out your light," whispered Old King Brady, in warning tones.
"See them?" asked the boy, complying.
"No, but they must have kindled that fire."
"Advance carefully now."
They got down on their hands and knees again, and went on to the spot where the passage opened into a smaller cave.
Here the sight was prettier.
The floor, walls and ceiling were a delicate shade of pink, and the icicles formed many fantastic shapes that sparkled in the firelight.
Pausing, the detectives now saw that the place was about fifty feet in diameter, with a vaulted roof, through a hole in which the smoke from a big log fire was pouring upward.
Upon the floor there were some skins of animals, benches, boxes, dishes and other articles used for cooking and comfort.
Two men were lying upon the ground smoking pipes before the big fire, and as the lights glowed upon their faces, the detectives observed that they were Roland Mason and Sim Johnson.
Both were conversing.
"Sim," the white man was saying, "are you quite sure the detectives have got Nick locked up in jail?"
"Dat's whut I heered dis mornin' in de town, Massa Ronald," replied the negro, in serious tones.
"He may give us away, Sim."
"If he do, Ise gwine ter gib it to him."
"You won't have the chance if he's locked up."
They both laughed heartily at this grim remark.
When Sim's mirth abated, he said thoughtfully:
"Peahs ter me, if dem yere 'tectives wuz a-gwine ter pump any news outen dat coon, dey would hab done it las' night, an' come right heah aftah us, sah."
"Their absence is all that relieves my mind, Sim. I quite agree with your idea. Still, Nick may weaken later on, and make a clean breast of it."
"Hab we got ter stay heah much longer?"
"No. Old Dalton is losing his nerve."
"Gwine ter sign dat check?"
"Yes. He hasn't had anything to eat for three days, and his spirit is broken entirely. He's begging me for food."
"What yo' tell de ole fool?"
"I told him I'd feed him the moment he signs that check."
"An' he gwine ter do it, hey?"
"I'm going to tackle him once more. I'm sure he will obey now. You see, there's a balance of $75,000 in Dalton's bank, in ready cash. It can't be drawn without a check, and I'm bound to get such a check. Once I have the money I'll let him go."
"Whar yo' go den?"
"England."
"An' take me?"
"So I promised you."
"De quicker yo' settle dat business, de better."
"Yes. It's too dangerous to remain around here much longer."
"Let's go and hab a look at de ole fellow now?"
"Very well. Light your lantern, and I'll get a fountain pen and a blank check."
They got upon their feet.
While the negro was procuring the light, Mason got his check, and they crossed the cavern, entered a narrow fissure in the wall, and vanished.
The detectives glided from their place of concealment.
Every word uttered had been heard by them.
They entered the fissure.
Some distance ahead was the light.
It suddenly disappeared around a bend, and the officers observed, its dim rays illuminating a small chamber, as black as midnight.
Reaching the end of the passage, the Bradys glanced through the big opening and saw a small cavern of the same crystal formation as the two other caves, excepting that everything here was black and dark brown from some chemical discoloration.
It was a gloomy place.
In the middle of the room was a huge rock.
An iron ring was mortised in the side of it, to which a short, rusty chain was fastened. This chain held a human being a prisoner by being padlocked around his ankle.
The man was Oliver Dalton.
But the detectives scarcely recognized him.
His face was pale and haggard, his eyes deeply sunken in their sockets, his hair dishevelled, and his face covered with a short beard.
From privations his figure was so shrunken that his clothing hardly fit him, and the garments were so dirty and torn that he looked like a tramp.
Mason and the negro had paused near him.
The villain stood looking at the pitiful object he had so basely wronged with a cold, calculating glance, and finally said to him:
"How are you feeling, Dalton?"
"Oh, you miserable cur----" began the old broker, bitterly.
"Shut up!" roared Mason, roughly interrupting him. "No raving!"
"You'll kill me yet."
"That makes little difference to me."
"For mercy's sake give me some food; I'm starving."
"Not till you obey me."
"Have you no pity left in you?"
"I'm simply determined to carry my point."
"This is horrible--inhuman!"
"Oh, I know very well it's unpleasant," testily answered Mason, "but you might have spared yourself all the suffering you have been undergoing for the past three days had you done as I asked. You know me, Dalton. I've started a desperate game to get your money, and I've been baffled at every turn by those accursed Bradys. This is my last resource to raise money enough to get out of the country, and, by Heavens, I'll win, or you'll die!"
The broker gazed steadily at him a moment.
In the hard, cruel expression of Mason's eyes he read his doom, and he was so overcome with absolute misery of mind and body that he leaned against the rock and cried like a child. All hope had left him.
He was broken down in body and spirit.
A cold, cynical smile hovered over Mason's face.
He was not moved by the signs of weakness his prisoner showed. On the contrary, he gloated over it.
This was the surest indication to him that Dalton was upon the verge of collapse, and intended to give in.
He waited for his victim to get over the first paroxysm of grief, and watched him as closely as a cat watches a mouse.
Finally he asked in sharp, metallic tones:
"Well, which shall it be--obey me, and sign a check, or remain chained here like a wild beast, and perish of starvation?"
For a moment there was a deep silence.
Slowly the prisoner removed his trembling hands from his wan, pinched face, and said in reproachful tones:
"I can't stand this any longer."
"Then you will sign the check?" eagerly asked Mason.
"Yes. And you will then give me my liberty?"
"The moment you affix your signature to this check, we will give you food. And the moment I get the money, you will get your liberty."
"Give me the check."
Mason drew the pen and paper from his pocket, eagerly strode over to the poor wretch, and held them out to him.
But instead of taking the pen, Dalton gave one mighty leap, clutched the wretch by the throat with both hands, and, choking the villain till he grew black in the face, he yelled frantically:
"I've got you at last, you dog; and by the eternal, I'll kill you, if it's the last thing I do on earth! Die, confound you, die! And this is the vengeance I've been craving all through the moments of torture you've put me to in the past!"
He hurled Mason upon the floor, pinioned him to the ground, with a knee on his chest, and Sim, with an oath, rushed to his master's aid. _