Part 15

“If I had only told our folk where we were going,” he reflected, “they would hunt for us when they find us missing. But now they will be uneasy, and not know where on earth we are! No; they won’t have the slightest clue to track us! Oh, dear! What is going to become of us? How is this spree to end? What about my ankle? What on earth! Well, now are we to stay here all night? Will in the cave, and I here? ‘So near, and yet so far!’ My stars! I’ve read that in stories, but I never guessed what it meant! ‘So near, and yet so far!’ The man that wrote those words knew more than I ever shall, anyway! Oh! What will the demon do to poor Will?”

Henry could reason logically, and now, as well as his aching ankle would permit, he reviewed the whole scheme of visiting the Demon’s Cave. In the light he now had it seemed very foolish, whichever way he looked at it.

“It was a humbug,” he acknowledged to himself; “but after all it is just what all heroes do, and I don’t see why we should not have managed it better.”

His sprained ankle pained him intensely; he began to feel the effects of his involuntary ride down hill; the place where the “bullet” struck him smarted and itched in a manner to make him writhe. In a word, he was miserable in both body and mind.

He reverted to the scene of conflict! “What could have been wrong with that pistol?” he asked himself angrily. “_Something_ struck me--but _what_? Certainly, not a bullet. My father says that a big dose of powder will drive almost anything hard and solid into the flesh. Now, this struck me, and hurt me; but it didn’t punch a hole through my vest. Well, if I could only unload this other pistol, I should know to a certainty.--What became of the pistol Will fired? If he carried it off with him, he may suddenly scare the demon out of his wits!--Now, I wonder whether Will loaded my pistols wrong on purpose!--Well, this _is_ rum old sport, sitting here like a dying gladiator, and not able to turn over for fear of howling with pain! No; I can’t budge from this spot!--Botheration! I won’t take Will to see any more curiosities!--Surely, the demon won’t hurt him!”

Thus the boy continued, speaking disjointed sentences just as the spirit moved him.

As no help came to him, he, the irrepressible, began to despond. It seemed to him that Death only would come to his release. Suddenly, he thought of the glass ink bottle hidden behind “Robinson Crusoe” in his drawer. He dwelt on it for the space of three minutes, and then, between a sigh and a groan, he said: “I wish I knew whether _she_ would care if I should die here--alone, and in pain! Would _she_ be sorry, or would she go to school as light-hearted as ever, and let some other boy sharpen her pencil? I wonder whether she would borrow Johnny Jones’ history! Oh! how I despise that boy! I wish I could see him leave the country! I wish now that I had given her my history out and out; _that_ would keep my memory green in her eyes.”

Now, as Henry seldom or never soared higher than comparison,--to make our meaning clearer, as he was not in the habit of apostrophizing his treasured glass ink-bottle as an animated being of the feminine gender,--we must conclude that the veil is lifted from a romance in his life.

Do not laugh at him, reader; his woes were actual. In fact, we venture to assert that every member of the sterner sex, from the age of sixteen or seventeen till he is happily married, if he has any _feeling_, any _heart_, any _soul_, suffers more or less acutely from jealousy of a rival, real or imaginary.

After a time the moon came out, and dimly lighted up the valley. Henry was not afraid of goblins; and in sheer desperation he resolved to wait doggedly till something should happen.

Notwithstanding all his woes, he began to feel hungry. Then he recollected that he had set out with a knapsack of sandwiches slung over his shoulder.

“It will amuse me, and turn my wandering thoughts into a different channel,” he muttered, as he felt for the knapsack.

Alas! In sliding down hill his knapsack had been torn into ribbons, so that the carefully prepared sandwiches were strewn along the hillside.

His thoughts were “turned into a different channel;” but he was not very much “amused.”

In this way, the time passed with Henry. He could not, or would not, make an effort to move from the heap of earth which had arrested his downward course.

Having thus disposed of him, how did it fare with Will?

When the demon re-entered the cave, he, according to his custom, fastened the door. Next he kindled a good fire on the smouldering coals of the old one; and then, having stepped up to the room where Will was a prisoner, he unlocked and opened the door and told him to come out. Will did so with alacrity.

The demon said no more, but pointed out a seat, and quietly prepared to get supper. He took a fat bird out of his pouch, and roasted it carefully over the fire. Then he fixed part of a chicken, a delicious fish, and sundry other eatables, each on a separate stick, where the fire would cook them. To Will’s astonishment, he suddenly appeared with a few slices of bread, which he put on a toaster and toasted while the other things were being cooked. Now, who ever read about a hermit that toasted bread?

By the way, the demon, like the writer in inditing these few chapters, had several “irons in the fire” at once.

When everything was ready, he set a table with the food thus prepared, and took a pan of skim-milk from a crazy cupboard built in the wall.

“Sit down and eat,” he said to Will; “I’ll speak with you afterwards.”

Will was in no humor to care about eating, and as it was yet early in the evening he was not hungry; but not liking to refuse the strange man’s hospitality, he sat down to the table and “ate like an emigrant,” as Henry would have phrased it. He afterwards told his friends that the “victuals were very good.”

After supper the demon cleared off the table and put everything in the room in far better order than it was when the hero was taken into it.

Up to this time scarcely a word had been spoken between them. Will was filled with dread that he had killed, or at least severely hurt, his cousin. He, of course, did not know that Henry was in full possession of his senses as he lay on the ground, nor that he was doing this only to disarm the demon. The wildest fears flashed through his brain; his sufferings were more intense than Stephen’s had been on the island. He blamed himself; he blamed Henry; he blamed the pistols; he blamed the demon. Yet he felt himself utterly unable to escape. And he was troubled on his own account. What did the demon intend to do with him? Why did he detain him there? These questions perplexed the boy; and not knowing what else to do, he tried hard to think it all a dream. But no; it could not be a dream, for in a dream there is never any smoke to make one sneeze. Then Henry’s wild tales about the demon’s cannibalism and cruelty recurred to him. Certainly, the demon’s look was forbidding--almost ferocious; but Will did not think him capable of torturing any one. He had too much good sense to think that the man would do him any harm; but still he feared him, and felt ill at ease in his presence.

He had had no particular desire to come on this wild-goose-chase, because he wished to keep out of mischief during his stay at his aunt’s. He was not so mercurial, whimsical, and romantic, as his cousin, and he had consented to go as much to please him as for any other reason.

“I think I shall have to get pa to shut me up, if I ever find my way back home,” he mused, in his despair. “No matter what I do, something always comes to grief. I thought surely it would be safe to fly a little balloon, when Henry had always done it. But no; it must come down, and set a building on fire! How is it that everything goes wrong with me? Am I a blockhead, or a fool? Oh dear! I get into worse scrapes every time; but _this_ is the worst yet--_this_ beats them all! If Henry and I survive this, I suppose we shall stumble into something that will finish us entirely! Now, I knew it was wrong to start with loaded pistols, and I didn’t want to do it. Then, _why_ did I? I deserve all this misery for my foolishness. But poor Henry! It seems to me now that he _must_ be alive. Oh! If I could only know!”

Then he began to wonder how it was that the demon had come upon them so suddenly. “He was there all at once,” Will said to himself, as he glanced furtively at the “recluse.” “Did he come from the cave, or the valley, or the bank, or a hollow in the tree, or the clouds? All I know is, he wasn’t anywhere near, till suddenly he had me in his arms! And Henry was as much surprised to see him as I was! Well, the man must be a wizard--or else a witch, or a humbug! If I could only get away!”

It has been shown that Henry reflected that no one would know where to look for them. The same appalling thought occurred to Will. But, like an inspiration, it came to him that the teamster who had given them a ride eyed them narrowly as they went up the valley.

“Now, if that teamster will only do us as good a turn as the sailor did when we paddled away in the punt,” he said to himself, “we may be saved yet!”

Boy-like, the hero pinned his faith on the teamster, and felt considerably happier. In fact, five minutes more, and he had settled it in his own mind that, sooner or later, they would be saved through him.

Some writers, with fiendish ingenuity, seem to set themselves deliberately to work to unstring the nerves of their weak-headed readers, so that they shall plunge headlong into unfortunate speculations, and be ruined.

But the writer of this history is actuated by no such motives. He, good soul, uses no guile with his readers, wishes to deprive no one of needful sleep, and would shrink with horror from tampering with any one’s business or intellect.

When the writer was a boy, he read a strong and exciting romance, written by a master-hand. There were no idle dissertations in it; every chapter, every paragraph, every sentence, every line, rang with meaning; and it was so forcibly written that it would captivate a stronger mind than his. He [your humble servant, “the writer,”] was not content with one perusal, but read it again, and then lent it to three other boys, who read it with equal avidity. When returned, he might have been tempted to read it for the third time; but, alas! those boys, in their eagerness to read, had apparently neglected to wash their hands; and had turned over the leaves so hurriedly that it was in a state of dilapidation.

The writer has nothing to say against that romance. He learned many things from it, and unhesitatingly pronounces it the best he ever read. It is still green in his memory--in fact, he looks back on it to-day with feelings of respect and admiration. But it distracted his thoughts from his lessons, and muddled his wits to such an extent that he fears sometimes they are muddled yet.

Behold the result. A reaction set in, and all preposterous romances, that one excepted, have become to him an abomination.

Hence outbursts like the one above.

_Chapter XX._

A GLORIOUS TRIUMPH.

We have strayed so far from our subject that the reader may be at a loss to take our original meaning. If so, when the boys are saved let him refer to Will’s soliloquy and what immediately follows, and light will burst upon him.

Will drew nearer the fire, and looked at the demon with wondering eyes, as every fifteen minutes or so he swung the huge fan suspended from the ceiling. This fan effectually cleared the apartment of smoke, but what became of the smoke was to Will an appalling mystery.

As time passed, and no relief came, Will’s uneasiness returned. His anxiety about Henry became intolerable; he could endure it no longer. Better even to anger the demon than sit in silence and suffer torments. When he went out, surely he must have seen Henry.

This hero was one of those extremely patient people who, lest they should incommode somebody else, will endure untold agony, when a simple question might set all their doubts and fears at rest.

“Sir,” he ventured to ask, “do you think he was badly hurt? Or--or--didn’t you go to look for him?”

The demon, who had been sitting beside the fire for the last half hour, with his head resting on his hands and his elbows supported by his knees, started violently. He had evidently been so deeply absorbed in thought that he had forgotten another was present.

“Ha!” he cried excitedly. “Ha! What is this?” (Madmen always say “ha!” generally twice.) Then, recovering himself, he added, “Yes, yes; I’m going to speak to you presently. What did you say just now?”

Will repeated his question.

“Ho! There _was_ another with you, then!” he exclaimed. “I was afraid that I had been mistaken again. I am deceived so often that I don’t know when to believe even myself. Then there was another. But he had gone when I went out to see. Who was he?”

Will was thunder-struck. Could he rely on this strange man? If Henry had gone, he could not have been killed. But where could he be? Had he forsaken him, his cousin? No; he could not believe that Henry, so noble, brave, and true, could be guilty of such treachery. Then had he been found by some one, and taken away? If so, why did he not return with a band of men to save his cousin? In truth, Will was mystified. If he had known that the poor boy was near him, lying helpless on the ground, exposed to the cold night air, and moaning with pain, he would have thought their case a desperate one indeed.

At length he collected himself sufficiently to answer the demon’s question by giving his cousin’s name.

“And who are you?” asked the madman.

“William Lawrence.”

“Why did you two come here?” the demon asked abruptly.

This was an unexpected question; Will was not prepared to answer it. “To see the cave,” he said at last.

“Did you two come alone, or is some one else lurking near?”

“No, sir; we came entirely alone.”

“That is well. You did not come to do me any harm?”

Will thought he could safely say “no” to that.

After a pause the demon said slowly, as though he had settled it in his own mind: “You are a good little boy. I like you; you must stay with me; I want a fine little fellow like you to be with me all the time.”

Will was struck dumb with consternation. He could not appreciate the compliment thus paid him.

“No, sir,” he said imploringly, “I cannot stay here at all. You must let me out, and I must find my cousin and go home.”

“No, I cannot let you go! You shall live with me for the rest of my life. Sit down!” he cried, as Will started to his feet.

Then he darted to the door, and placed his back against it.

“But what would my parents say to that? They would never let me stay here,” Will protested.

Luckless boy! In his distress he knew not what to do or say.

“_Parents?_ Have you _parents_?” the demon inquired.

“Certainly I have,” said Will, with great dignity.

“Then, why did they allow a little boy, you are only a boy, to come here at this time of night?”

Will could say nothing in his defence. He hung his head in confusion.

“Well, I shall keep you here till morning, at least. If I should let you go now, how do I know what you two might plot against me? No! Here you are; here you stay!”

Will was only a boy, and he did not consider that a strong man is seldom or never afraid of the machinations of school-boys, so he said earnestly: “If you let me out immediately, I promise that we will go: home as fast as possible.”

The demon continuing inexorable, the boy said desperately, “Sir, we have friends who will certainly come for us, if you do not let me out.”

“Say no more,” replied the demon, “for I cannot let you go. Listen: People take it into their heads sometimes to molest me, _but I always come out all right_! _I teach them a lesson that they remember!_ Your punishment will be to remain till I choose to set you free.”

The horrible stories told by Henry again flashed through the prisoner’s mind, but he was not terrified. Looking intently at the demon, he fancied that instead of wickedness he saw playfulness in his eye.

“He is only trying to frighten me,” was Will’s thought.

The demon had moved back to the fire after making his last remark, and presently Will, seeing no other means of escape, sprang to his feet and rushed headlong towards the door. He had barely reached it when the demon was upon him. Once more two long and sinewy arms encircled the helpless boy, and he was borne struggling back to the fire.

“Treacherous boy!” cried the demon. “I’ll settle your fate in the morning; now you will have to be locked up in your room.”

Without another word he carried Will into the bedroom already described, and laid him upon the bed.

“Get in between the quilts, and you will be comfortable,” he said, as he turned to go.

Again the door was fastened, and again our blundering hero found himself a close prisoner in the demon’s bedroom.

His thoughts were far from being pleasant. “If I had had the cleverness of any other boy, I should not be here now,” he muttered. “By my own silly questions and answers I only made matters worse. Henry, Charley, George, or even Marmaduke, could have outwitted him easily; Steve would have made _him_ a prisoner, ten to one, and escaped at his leisure. Oh! this is horrible! I _must_ get away!”

He jumped lightly off the bed, and knelt before the door. By good fortune, he found a crack through which he could observe every movement made by the demon.

“Well, this is a good beginning!” he said, hopefully, “I shall watch till he goes to bed, and then try again.”

But the demon, with provoking composure, sat and dozed before his fire.

Time passed exceedingly slowly to poor Will. He thought it must be near the middle of the night, while it was not yet ten o’clock.

At length the madman arose and opened a concealed door in the wall. Then he lighted a candle, passed in, and shut the door softly behind him.

Will, like all boys, had a touch of the romantic, and he was delighted to see Henry’s suspicions verified. His spirits rose, and he chuckled joyously: “Well, it’s a regular robbers’ den, after all. Concealed doors and everything to match. If Henry is only alive, and I can get away, it won’t be so bad, after all! And now that he’s gone I guess I can manage it, after all!”

He waited a few minutes, and then began to fumble at his door. While in the outer room with the demon, he had taken notice of the way in which this door was fastened, and seen that it was by means of a heavy bolt on the outside. He had also observed that in the door, above the bolt, there seemed to be an opening, covered with a shingle that slid back and forth on the inside.

Feeling carefully for this shingle, he found it, took out a pin which held it fast, and shoved it back.

“The demon ain’t so careful as he wants to be!” Will said sagely. “Surely, here is a loophole of escape! I wish I could ease my feelings by heaping up big and meaning words, as Henry or George would do.”

He waited a few moments in some uneasiness, fearing that the demon might have heard him tampering with the lock; but as all remained quiet he put his hand through the opening, and shoved back the bolt.

The door opened, and Will stood in the outer room.

Having taken the precaution of shutting and bolting his door, he was warily drawing near the front door, when a strange sound proceeding from the demon’s hiding-place attracted his attention.

He heard the clink of money.

Will paused. “I’ll see what this means,” he said heroically, “but I’ll not run the risk of being captured. No; I’m too near freedom to throw away my chances just to see a crazy man finger his money.”

Picking up a stick from the smouldering fire, he softly approached the concealed door.

Poor boy! Experience should have taught him better than to play the Robber-Kitten--but when does experience profit a boy?

His usual luck befell him; he stumbled and fell prostrate with a crash.

The demon must have heard him, for he had barely regained his feet when, with a cry of dismay, the concealed door was flung open. On seeing Will, the demon did not stop to shut it, but darted upon him with fury. In his headlong course he struck against a stone and fell heavily.

Will waited to see him rise, and stood ready to defend himself. But the demon lay upon the floor immovable. His head had struck some hard substance, and he was insensible.

Presently Will went up to the demon. “Poor fellow!” he said compassionately, “he is badly hurt! His fall was serious; mine was only a stumble. I can’t go away and leave him in this state; I must help him.”

Tenderly he raised the powerless man, and exerting all his strength, he dragged him to a bench close by, and laid him on it. Then he saw that the demon’s head was severely hurt.

“Now, if he wakes up and finds me taking care of him, he won’t hurt me; so I shall go and get some water to bathe his head,” was Will’s next thought. “Henry said there was a spring, or water of some kind, in the cave, but there is certainly none in this room. Well, I must leave him and look for some.”

Snatching up a little pail, he hurried into the room which the demon had just left. Here he stopped a moment to look about. The room was very much like the two already described; there was a rude couch in it, but it was scantily furnished. The demon had evidently given up his “best bedroom” to Will.

Our hero’s wandering eyes soon rested on the most noticeable “chattel” in the room,--a large and strong box, the lid of which lay open. In this box there was a little pile of silver coins.

“Hello!” he said, “The demon has some money, after all! This is what he was jingling and counting, I suppose. Well, there’s no water here; I must go on.”

If Will had stopped to count the demon’s treasure, he would have found it a very modest fortune. In round numbers it amounted to only five dollars. ($5.00.)

O, golden legends of our youth, O, thrilling tales of riper years, How cruelly do you deceive!

A door stood open, leading from this room into a larger one.

“I’d better try this,” Will muttered. “It looks dark enough and big enough for a cavern, and there ought to be water in it, if anywhere.”

Having made his way into this apartment, Will found it to be spacious, but dark and desolate. A solitary lamp, which burned feebly, was of little avail in such darkness. After taking a few steps he heard the purling of water; and on reaching the spot he found a little stream of pure water, which doubtless emptied into the brook in the valley, running over the ground. He filled his pail and hurriedly retraced his steps, noticing several openings into the outer room, concealed there, but visible here.

“Well, this demon _is_ a queer fellow!” he soliloquized, as he went along. “He seems to have all kinds of hiding-places here, that nobody knows about. Now, what in the world does he do with so many rooms, and why does he keep a light burning in this hole? Perhaps he keeps it burning all the time on account of the darkness. I don’t wonder he has money; it must take a fortune to live here, for it is just the same as living in a castle. Well, I’ve explored his secret regions till I’m tired of it; and I guess Henry was right when he said a band of robbers fitted it up for a menagerie.”

A minute later he was again with the demon, whom he found still insensible. Taking out his handkerchief, he bathed the man’s head gently, and did everything he could to restore consciousness. But all in vain.

“Oh, dear!” he cried, “I shall have to leave him and look for Henry. I’m sure Henry is alive, but I must find him, and then we can come here again and help the demon.”

He arose and left the cave.