CHAPTER IX
THE MAGICIAN'S CAVE
Esther had taken her mother for a little drive upon that hot September afternoon, but they had not stayed out so long as usual. The banks of cloud rising in the sky had frightened Mrs. St. Aiden, and Esther turned the pony's head for home, not very wishful herself to test Punch's nerve in a thunderstorm.
They got home, however, before the first rumble sounded, and Mrs. St. Aiden went up-stairs to lie down. She said that the heavy air made her head ache, and that perhaps she should get a nap before tea-time.
Esther had taken off her hat, and was watching the first flashes of the lightning amid the piled-up clouds, when the little maid came to say that there was a poor woman who wanted to speak to one of the ladies, and should she tell the mistress, or would Miss Esther see her?
"Oh, I'll go," said Esther; "mother must not be disturbed."
She ran down to the back gate. Genefer was out, and for the moment there was only the little maid available for any service. The cook was picking fruit in the garden over the road. She must not be hindered, as the rain would very likely soon come.
Esther did not remember ever to have seen this wrinkled old woman before. She did not know in the least who she was, nor what she wanted. She could only just understand her when she spoke, for she had a very broad, soft accent, and used many funny words that the little girl hardly understood.
At first she thought the woman must be making a mistake in what she was saying; for she was telling Esther that the little gentlemen, and little Miss Milly from the rectory, were out in a boat on the bay, and that she was afraid there was a storm coming on, and had come up to tell somebody lest they should come to harm.
It was some time before Esther could be persuaded that there was not a mistake somewhere. She could not believe that Pickle and Puck and the little Polperrans could possibly be out in a boat by themselves. But the old woman assured her that they were, and told her, in a half-frightened way, how they came down on most Saturdays and took her husband's old boat across to the little island opposite, where they played for a few hours and then came back. But it had always been calm and quiet on the water hitherto, and she had had no uneasiness on their account; but now the wind was getting up, and it looked like a storm coming, and she thought she ought to tell somebody, and didn't know what to do lest her old man should be vexed with her. So she had come to see the ladies about it. Perhaps they could send somebody.
"Oh yes," answered Esther quickly, casting about in her mind what to do; "I think I could find somebody who would help. Is the storm going to come very quickly?"
"I don't think so very quick, missie, and they'll be all safe on the island; they don't come back ever till a good bit later than this. But I don't like to think of them trying to get the heavy old boat home alone, with the wind blowing off shore like this. I don't think as they could do it; and it might get blown out to sea, and they would be skeered like."
Esther was a little scared herself at the bare thought.
She turned things quickly over in her mind. She had to take command of the situation. Genefer was away for the afternoon. Cook was no good in an emergency, as she always lost her head; and it was one of Esther's tenets that her mother must be spared all worry and anxiety.
Whatever was to be done she must do herself, and her thoughts flew instantly to Mr. Earle. He had become something like a real friend to the little girl during these past weeks. She was not without a certain timid fear of his cleverness, his stores of occult knowledge, and the things in which he took part up at the Crag, which made folks shake their heads sometimes, and say that they feared some hurt to somebody would be the result. Yet for all that Esther believed in him thoroughly, and felt that he was certain to go to the aid of the boys if he knew their predicament, and it must be her work to let him know as soon as possible.
She looked up at the threatening sky, but thunder and lightning did not frighten Esther much. She would have been glad of company through the dark pine wood, but she was not really afraid to go alone. She was more afraid of approaching the Crag at a time when it was popularly supposed that the master and his assistant were always engaged upon one of their uncanny experiments; but there seemed nothing else to be done, since the pony carriage had been already sent back by the boy in charge. After dismissing the woman with a small fee and a few words of thanks, Esther put on her hat once more and commenced the climb to the Crag.
She had got about half-way there when she uttered a little exclamation of joy, for there was Mr. Earle himself swinging away down the path as if to meet her.
She ran eagerly forward to meet him.
"O Mr. Earle, did they tell you too?"
"Tell me what?" he asked, stopping short and looking straight at her. "What are you doing here all alone, with a storm coming up?"
"O Mr. Earle, it's the boys. I'm afraid about them. I was coming to ask you what to do." And then she plunged into the story, and told him exactly what the old woman had told her.
Mr. Earle's face looked a little grim as he heard, and his eyes scanned the clouds overhead and the aspect of things in general.
"Look here," he said to Esther in his clear, decisive way; "I'll tell you what we must do. Leave me to see after the boys. I'll go after them in the Swan; for they ought not to be alone any distance from land, with the wind getting up and blowing off shore. But if I do that for you, you must go up to the Crag for me with a message; and if the storm breaks, or looks very like breaking, you must stop up there till it's over. I'll leave word as I pass your house where you are, so that nobody will be uneasy about you."
Esther shook a little at the thought of going alone to the Crag, but she never thought of shirking.
"What is the message?" she asked.
"It's like this," said Mr. Earle, speaking rapidly and clearly: "Mr. Trelawny and I are at a stand-still in some of our experiments for a certain chemical, which has been on order from London for some time. We think the carrier may have brought it to-day, and I'm on my way to the little shop to see if it's been left. Mr. Trelawny is waiting for me in some impatience. You must take word that I shall probably be detained, and that I want him not to go on any farther till I come back. You can remember that, can't you? You had better send Merriman to fetch him to come and see you; then you can explain all about it, and if you have once got him safe out of the laboratory, you keep him out. I don't want him to go on experimenting without me. It wants two for that sort of thing. Do you understand?"
"Yes," answered Esther, and then the pair parted. Mr. Earle went swinging down the path which passed the Hermitage and led to the village where the carrier's cart deposited parcels; and Esther, with a very grave face, went slowly upwards towards the house upon the crag.
She was glad to think she need not seek Mr. Trelawny himself amid his crucibles and retorts and strange apparatus; but she was a little afraid at having to face him all alone, although she had been trying hard to conquer her fears of him, and she had to own that he was always especially kind to her.
She could not walk very fast here, for the ground was steep, and she had tired her limbs by hurrying along the first part of the way. The air seemed very hot and close about her, and she felt the sort of ache in her head which thunder often brought.
All of a sudden she gave a little jump, and stopped short, for she saw a strange thing just in front of her – a little spiral of sulphurous smoke, curling upwards from the ground, very much as she had read that it did when volcanoes were going to have an eruption; and she very nearly forgot everything else, and turned to run away, when her steps were arrested by something even more alarming – the distinct sound of a groan, proceeding, as it seemed, from the very heart of the earth.
Esther's feet seemed rooted to the spot. She could not run away now; she had not the power. Meantime her wits were hard at work, and in a few moments she realized that she was close to the hole which the boys called the chimney of the underground cave, and the smoke she saw was coming up from that place, whilst the groan must surely have been uttered by some person down there.
All the old terror of that subterranean cave came like a flood over Esther – all the talk of the boys about prisoners and victims, and her own vague and fearful imaginings of the horrors of such places. She was shaking all over, and beads of moisture stood upon her brow. Reason for the moment had taken wing, and it seemed to Esther as though she had suddenly come upon some fearful mystery of human suffering.
There was some wretched human being in that cave, groaning in pain – bound, perhaps, in fetters, and awaiting some terrible doom. Could she leave him like that? Having made this discovery, ought she not to pursue it farther? Her heart beat to suffocation at the bare thought, but she fought fiercely with her fears. Had she not resolved to overcome them? And how could she leave this poor creature without seeking to do something?
With failing limbs she crept towards the mouth of the shaft. She had looked down it many times before this, when the boys had been with her. But then there had been no smoke curling out of it, and no blood-curdling sounds coming up.
She could not put her head right over it to-day, for the smoke choked her and made her cough; and immediately there seemed to come from below a sort of muffled cry.
Esther caught her breath and called back, —
"Is there anybody down there?"
"Yes; come to me! Help!" spoke the voice, which sounded from the very depths of the earth. And Esther's resolve was taken.
She must go. She must go herself, and at once. To summon help from the Crag might be worse than useless. This miserable victim was probably imprisoned there by the master of that place. Esther's mind had gone back for the moment to its old standpoint, and Mr. Trelawny was the terrible magician, whose doings were so full of mystery if not of iniquity. If any captive were there, he had placed him in that terrible prison. His servants were probably in collusion with their master. If anything could be done, it must be done quickly and by herself alone.
"I'm coming!" she cried down the mouth of the shaft, and then set off to run for the door in the hillside, the position of which she knew perfectly by this time.
The boys had often shown it to her, and had shown her the trick of opening it. But they had never gone in. Mr. Trelawny had forbidden them to do so, knowing their mischievous tendencies. Esther had the free right of entrance, but she would sooner have put her head into a lion's mouth than have exercised it. She had never been in since that first day when she had had to be carried out by Mr. Trelawny. She had hoped never to have to enter the fearful place again.
But she must to-day, she plainly must, though her knees were quaking at the bare thought.
She had had one or two talks with Mr. Earle about fear of the dark and how to conquer it. Esther was not afraid of the dark in the ordinary sense of the word. She was not afraid of going about in the dark in her own home; for she had tried that, and only now and then, when in a nervous mood, had felt any fear. But she knew that she could not bear strange underground dark places, and she had once asked Mr. Earle if he thought she ought to go there to get used to them. But he had looked at her for a few moments, and had then said, —
"No, I do not think so – not unless there were some object to be gained by it. There are many people in the world who dislike underground places, and avoid them. As a rule there is no call for them to conquer the dislike. Of course, if one could do any good by going, if there were some sufficient reason for it – if it were to help somebody else, for instance – then it would be right to try and overcome one's repugnance. But without some such motive, I do not see that any one would be greatly benefited by going into uncongenial places of the kind."
Esther thought of all this as she ran along. Hitherto it had been a comfort to her to think of this decision. But now it seemed to her that the time had come when she was bound to go. Somebody wanted help. There was nobody but herself to give it. She might not be able to accomplish much, but at least she ought to go and see. To turn and run away would be like the priest and Levite in the parable, who left the poor man wounded and half dead. Everybody knew that they were wicked. She must try and copy the good Samaritan, who, she knew, was the type of Jesus Himself.
That thought came to her like a ray of comfort, and it helped to drive back the flood of her fears. Then she remembered what Mr. Earle had said about what his mother told him to do; and, just as she reached the strange old door in the hillside, Esther dropped upon her knees and buried her face in her hands.
It was only for a few seconds, but when she got up again she felt that she could go into the cave. A few minutes before, it had seemed as if it were almost impossible.
The heavy door yielded to her touch. She knew it would swing back again when she let it go, so she took a big stone with her and set it wide open. There would be comfort in the feeling that there was light and air behind her, though the cave looked fearfully dark and gloomy, and the strange smell inside it, as she went slowly forward, brought back some of the dizzy feeling she had experienced upon her first visit.
A heavy groan smote upon her ears, and she gave a start and clasped her hands tightly together. She was through the passage now, and could just see the outline of the great dim cave. But where the living thing was that was making these sounds she could not guess. She stood quite still, and called timidly, —
"Is anybody there?"
"Yes, child," answered a voice which she knew, now that she heard it more plainly. "Come a little nearer. I can't see you. I'm afraid I've been an old fool; and if I haven't blinded myself, I shall have better luck than I deserve."
Esther sprang forward with a little cry of relief. It was no chained captive, no unknown, mysterious prisoner. It was Mr. Trelawny himself, and he was hurt.
In a moment she was by his side, bending over him, seeing a very blackened face and a brow drawn with pain. Mr. Trelawny was half sitting, half lying upon the cold floor of the cave, and there was a lot of broken glass all about him. So much she could see, and not much beside.
"O Uncle Robert, I am so sorry! What can I do?"
"Isn't there a lot of glass about?"
"Yes."
"Well, there is a broom somewhere about. Get it and sweep it away, and I'll try to get up. Every time I've tried to move I've got my hands cut. I can't see a thing, and I've little power to help myself."
Esther forgot all about being afraid now that there was something to do. She found the broom, and was soon sweeping away like a little housemaid. Now and then a groan broke from Mr. Trelawny, and at last she said gently, —
"I think there's no more glass. Please, are you very much hurt?"
"Earle will tell me I ought to have been blown into a thousand fragments," was the rather grim reply. "I think I've got off cheap. But I've had a tremendous electric shock; and I'm a good bit cut and burnt, I expect. If only my eyes are spared, I'll not grumble at anything else. How came you here, child? I thought I should have an hour or more to wait till Earle got back."
Esther explained then what had happened, for Mr. Trelawny, although in much pain, had all his wits about him; and when he knew that Mr. Earle might be detained, he said to Esther, —
"Then you must be my attendant messenger instead. Go up by those stairs into the house, and fetch down Merriman and another of the men. I don't think I can get up there without more help than your little hands can give."
Esther quickly obeyed. She knew the way up into the house, and the key was in the door, so that she had no difficulty in getting there. The hall above was almost as dark by that time as the cave below; for the storm had gathered fast, and the black clouds seemed hanging right over them. But Esther had other things to think of now, and she quickly summoned the men, and sent them down to Mr. Trelawny; and then, being used in her own house to illness, she ran for the housekeeper, and begged her to get oil and linen rag and wine and soup ready, because Mr. Trelawny had burnt and hurt himself, and somebody must look after him, till the doctor came, and he could not well be sent for till after the storm had gone by, for it was going to be a very bad one.
So before very long Mr. Trelawny was lying at full length upon a great wide oak settle in the hall, and Esther was gently bathing his cut and blackened and blistered face and hands, and covering up the bad places with oiled rag, as she had seen Genefer do when cook had burnt herself one day.
Mr. Trelawny kept his eyes closed, and he drew his breath rather harshly, like one in pain, and his brows were drawn into great wrinkles.
"Do I hurt you?" Esther asked from time to time. The housekeeper seemed to think that Esther had better do the actual handling of the patient while she kept her supplied with the things she wanted. Mr. Trelawny's servants – and especially the women servants – stood in considerable awe of him. He never liked any attentions from a woman that a man could bestow, and the housekeeper preferred to remain discreetly in the background, leaving Esther to play the part of nurse.
Esther was well used to the rôle, and had a gentle, self-contained way with her that had come from her long tendance upon her mother. Her touch was very soft and gentle, but it was not uncertain and timid. Indeed she did not feel at all afraid of Mr. Trelawny now, only afraid of hunting him.
"No, no, child," he answered when she put the question; "your little hands are like velvet. They don't hurt at all. But what's all that noise overhead?"
"It's the rain," answered Esther. "There is such a storm coming up. Hark! don't you hear the thunder? And there was such a flash of lightning."
Mr. Trelawny put his hand up to his eyes, and made an effort to open them, but desisted almost immediately, with an exclamation of suffering.
Esther clasped her soft little hands round one of his in token of sympathy. She could understand the terrible fear which must possess him just now.
The servants had moved away by this time. They knew that the master did not like being looked at and fussed over. He had made a sign with his hand which they had understood to be one of dismissal, and Esther was alone with him now in this big place.
The storm was raging fearfully, but the child was not frightened. She had other things to think of, and she was thinking very hard.
"I hope Mr. Earle has got the boys safe," she said, with a tone of anxiety in her voice.
There was no reply. Mr. Trelawny was suffering keenly both in mind and body. Esther looked at him, and realized that this was so. She hardly meant to speak the words out loud, but they came into her head and they passed her lips almost before she was aware of it.
"Jesus can stop the storms and make them quiet again, and keep people safe in them. And He can make blind people see."
There was no reply; but Esther felt one of the bandaged hands feel about as if for something, and she put her own little hand into it at once. The fingers closed over it, and the man and the child sat thus together for a very long time.
Then there was a little stir in the hall, as the butler appeared, bringing tea; and Mr. Trelawny told Esther to get some, and give him a cup, as he was very thirsty.
She was glad enough to serve him, and did so daintily and cleverly; and before they had finished, the storm had very much abated. The rain still fell, and the wind blew; but the sun was beginning to shine out again, and Esther knew that the worst was over now.
"It is light again now," she said. "It was so dark all that time – almost as dark as the cave."
Mr. Trelawny looked more himself now. The pain of his burns was soothed by the dressing laid upon them, and the lines in his face had smoothed themselves out.
"Ah, the cave!" he repeated. "I thought that the cave was your special abhorrence, Esther. How came you to be there all alone to-day?"
"I came after you," answered Esther. "I heard somebody groan and call for help."
"Did you know who was calling?"
"No, the voice sounded so muffled and strange."
"I wonder you weren't afraid, you timid little mouse. Suppose it had been some great, rough smuggler fellow, such as used to live in that cave long ago!"
"But I knew he was hurt; he was groaning and calling for help."
"And that gave you courage?"
Esther hesitated.
"I don't think I felt very brave, but I knew I ought to go."
"Why ought you?"
"O Uncle Robert, you know we ought always to help people when they are in trouble – especially if they are hurt."
"Didn't you think you might get hurt too?"
Esther's face was rosy now, though he could not see it.
"I thought a great many silly things," she confessed softly. "I think I have been very silly and cowardly often, but I'm going to try not to be any more. I don't think I should mind going down into the cave again now."
"Tell me what you thought about it before," said Mr. Trelawny, in his imperious way; and though it was rather a hard command to obey, Esther thought it might, perhaps, amuse him to hear some of the things that she and the boys together had imagined about him, and perhaps he would tell her then how much of it all was true. So she told what Puck had said about the tanks where skeletons were pickled, and about the electric eye, and the elixir of life, and the different things that different persons had said, and the interpretation the boys had put upon their words, and how she had fancied that the groans she heard that day must proceed from some miserable captive destined for one of the tanks. It was rather hard to say all this, for some of it sounded quite silly now; but Esther bravely persevered, for she thought if she could once talk it right out she might never feel so frightened again.
Mr. Trelawny lay still, and she could not quite see the expression on his face, because it was partly covered up; but at last he seemed able to contain himself no longer, and he broke into a real laugh – not quite so loud or so gruff as usual, but very hearty for all that.
At the sound of that laugh Esther's fears seemed to take wing. It must all have been nonsense, she was sure. Nobody who had really been doing wicked and cruel things would laugh to know that they had been found out.
"I shall have to take you over my laboratory one of these days, and really show you my pickled skeletons, and my electric eye, and all the other mysteries. Now you need not shake, my dear. I have nothing in pickle worse than a specimen animal; and as for the electric eye, that is very far from being perfect, and it will be a long while before I can make you understand its use, or what we mean by the term. Anyhow, it is not an eye that we carry about with us. In your mind it would not be an eye at all, though it has some analogy to one. And as for the elixir of life, my dear, I would not drink of it if I were to find it. To live forever in this mortal world of ours would be a poor sort of thing; and we know that there is an elixir of life preparing for us, of which we shall all drink one day – all to whom it is given, that is. And then there will be new heavens and a new earth, and we shall all be glorified together."
Esther sat very still, trying to take in the magnitude of that idea, and feeling that she should never be afraid of Mr. Trelawny again, now that she had spoken so freely of her fears to him, and he had been so kind, and had said such nice things.
The shadows were beginning to fall now, and she was wondering how long she would have to stay here. She did not mean to leave Mr. Trelawny till Mr. Earle got back to take care of him; but she began to wish that he would come, and that she might get news of the boys.
At last the sound of a firm, ringing step was heard without, and Esther sprang to her feet. The big door was open, for it was quite warm still, though the rain had taken the sultriness out of the air. She ran out, and met Mr. Earle face to face. He was wet through and almost dripping, but he looked as quiet and composed as ever.
"O Mr. Earle, where are the boys?"
"Safe at home in bed, like a pair of drowned rats. It was a good thing you came to warn me, Esther, or they might have been miles out at sea by this time, or else at the bottom of it."
Esther's face paled a little.
"O Mr. Earle, what did they do?"
"You'd better run home and hear all about it from them. I thought you'd be back before I was."
"O Mr. Earle, I couldn't go till you came. Mr. Trelawny has hurt himself. They've sent for the doctor now. But they couldn't just at first, the storm was so bad. Please, will you go to him? Then I can go home. But may I come again to-morrow to see how he is?"
Mr. Earle had uttered a startled exclamation at hearing Esther's words, and was now striding into the hall, almost forgetful of her.
"Trelawny!" she heard him exclaim; and then Mr. Trelawny said in his dry way, —
"Yes; crow over me now as much as you like. I neglected your valuable advice, and see the result!"
Mr. Earle went and bent down over him; and Esther, feeling her task done, took her hat and stole out into the soft dusk, and ran down the hill home as fast as she could.