Chapter 22

"Perhaps I shall have my choice, after all. You remember what that was? To remain in the hands of our enemies. I ought never to have attempted to escape. I cannot help myself; I am only a burden to you. My daughters cannot continue to be with me here in this cave; and, if I am to be separated from them, I may as well be in a confederate prison as elsewhere. If the traitors seek my life, they are welcome to it."

"O, father! what do you say!" exclaimed Virginia, in terror at his words.

"I advise what I feel to be best. I will give myself up to the military authorities. You, and Salina, if she chooses, will, I am certain, be permitted to go to your friends in Ohio. But before I take this step, let all here who have strong arms to lend their country be already on their way over the mountains. Penn and Carl must go with them. Nor do I forget Pomp and Cudjo. They shall go too, and you will protect them."

Penn turned suddenly pale. It was the soundness of the good old man's counsel that terrified him. Separation from Virginia! She to be left at the mercy of the confederates! This was the one thing in the world he had personally to dread.

"It may be good advice," he said. "It is certainly a noble self-sacrifice, Mr. Villars proposes. But I do not believe there is one here who will consent to it. I say, let us keep together. If necessary, we can die together. We cannot separate, if by so doing we must leave him behind."

He spoke with intense feeling, yet his words were but feebly echoed by the patriots. The truth was, they were already convinced that they ought to be making their way out of the state, and had said so among themselves; but, being unwilling to abandon the old minister, and knowing well that he could never think of undertaking the terrible journey they saw before them, hither they had come to hear what he had to suggest.

"What do you think, Pomp?" Penn asked, in despair.

"I think that what Mr. Villars advises these men to do is the best thing."

Penn was stupefied. He saw that he stood alone, opposed to the general opinion. And something within himself said that he was selfish, that he was wrong. He did not venture to glance at Virginia, but bent his eyes downward with a stunned expression at the floor of the cave.

"But as for himself, and us, I am not so sure. There are recesses in this cave that cannot easily be discovered. He shall remain, and we will stay and take care of him, if he will."

These calm words of the negro sounded like a reprieve to Penn's soul. He caught eagerly at the suggestion.

"Yes, if there must be a separation, Pomp is right. If many go, it will be believed that all are gone, and the rest can remain in safety."

"You are all too generous towards me," said the old minister. "But I have nothing more to say. I am very patient. I am willing to accept whatever God sends, and to wait his own blessed time for it. When you, Penn, were sick in my house, and the ruffians were coming to kill you, and I could not determine what to do, the question was decided for me: Providence decided it by taking you, by what seemed a miracle, beyond the reach of all of us. So I believe this question, which troubles us now, will be decided for us soon. Something is to happen that will show us plainly what must be done."

So it was: something was indeed to happen, sooner even than he supposed.

XL.

_THE WONDERS OF THE CAVE._

The other inmates of the cave had breakfasted whilst the old clergyman was asleep. Toby was now occupied in preparing his dish of coffee, and Mr. Villars invited the patriots to remain and take a cup with him.

Penn noticed Cudjo's discontent at seeing Toby usurp his function. He remembered also a rare pleasure he had been promising himself whenever he should find Cudjo at leisure and circumstances favorable for his purpose.

"Now is our time," he whispered Virginia. "Will Salina come too?"

"What to do?" Salina asked.

"To explore the cave," said Penn, courteously, yet trembling lest the invitation should be accepted.

She excused herself: she was feeling extremely fatigued; much to Penn's relief--that is to say, regret, as he hypocritically gave her to understand.

She smiled: though she had declined, Virginia was going, and she thought he looked consoled.

"What does anybody care for me?" she said bitterly to herself.

It was to save her the pain of a slight that Penn, always too honest to resort to dissimulation from selfish motives, had assumed towards her a regard he did not feel. But the little artifice failed. She saw she was not wanted, and was jealous--angry with him, with Virginia, with herself. For thus it is with the discontented and envious. They cannot endure to see others happy without them. They gladly make the most of a slight, pressing it like a thistle to the breast, and embracing it all the more fiercely as it pierces and wounds. But he who has humility and love in his heart says consolingly at such times, "If they can be happy without me, why, Heaven be thanked! If I am neglected, then I must draw upon the infinite resources within myself. And if I am unloved, whose fault is it but my own? I will cultivate that sweetness of soul, the grace, and goodness, and affection, which shall compel love!"

Something like this Carl found occasion to say to himself; for if you think he saw the master he loved, and her who was dear to him as ever sister was to younger brother, depart with Cudjo and the torches, without longing to go with them and share their pleasure, you know not the heart of the boy. He was almost choking with tears as he saw the torches go out of sight. But just as he had arrived at this philosophical conclusion, O joy! what did he see? Penn returning! Yes, and hastening straight to him! "Carl, why don't you come too?"

There was no mistaking the sincerity of Penn's frank, animated face. Again the tears came into Carl's eyes; but this time they were tears of gratitude.

"Vould you really be pleased to have me?"

"Certainly, Carl! Virginia and I both spoke of it, and wondered why we had not thought to ask you before."

"Then I vill get my wery goot friend the captain to excuse me. I sushpect he vill be wexed to part from me; but I shall take care that the ties that bind us shall not be proken."

In pursuance of this friendly design, Carl produced a good strong cord which he had found in the cave. This he attached to the handcuffs by a knot in the middle; then, carrying the two ends in opposite directions around one of the giant's stools, he fastened them securely on the side farthest from the prisoner. This done, he gave the pistol to Toby, and invested him with the important and highly gratifying office of guarding "dat Shprowl."

"If you see him too much unhappy for my absence, and trying for some diwersion by making himself free," said Carl, instructing him in the use of the weapon, "you shall shust cock it _so_,--present it at his head or stomach, vichever is conwenient--_so_,--then pull the trigger as you please, till he is vunce more quiet. That is all. Now I shall say goot pie to him till I come pack."

"Why don't you kill and eat him?" asked Withers, watching the boy's operations with humorous enjoyment.

"Him?" said Carl, dryly. "Thank ye, sir; I am not fond of weal."

As Pomp and the patriots remained in the cave, it was not anticipated that Lysander would give any trouble.

With Carl at his side, Penn bore the torch above his head, and plunged into the darkness, which seemed to retreat before them only to reappear behind, surrounding and pursuing their little circle of light as it advanced.

A gallery, tortuous, lofty, sculptured by the gnomes into grotesque and astonishing forms, led from the inhabited vestibule to the wonders beyond. They had gone but a few rods when they saw a faint glimmer before them, which increased to a mild yellowish radiance flickering on the walls. It was the light of Cudjo's torch.

They found Cudjo and Virginia waiting for them at the entrance of a long and spacious hall, whose floor was heaped with fragments of rock, some of huge size, which had evidently fallen from the roof.

"De cave whar us lives, des' like dis yer when me find um in de fust place," the negro was saying to Virginia. "Right smart stuns dar."

"What did you do with them?"

"Tuk all me could tote to make your little dressum-room wiv. Lef' de big 'uns fur cheers when me hab comp'ny, hiah yah! When Pomp come, him help me place 'em around scrumptious like. Pomp bery strong--lif' like you neber see!"

Climbing over the stones, they reached, at the farther end of the hall, an abrupt termination of the floor. A black abyss yawned beyond. In its invisible depths the moan of waters could be heard. Virginia, who had been thrilled with wonder and fear, standing in the hall of the stones, and thinking of those crushing masses showered from the roof, now found it impossible not to yield to the terrors of her excited imagination.

"I cannot go any farther!" she said, recoiling from the gulf, and drawing Penn back from it.

"Come right 'long!" cried Cudjo; "no trouble, missis!"

"See, he has piled stones in here and made some very good and safe stairs. Take my torch, Carl, and follow; Cudjo will go before with his. Now, one step at a time. I will not let thee fall."

Thus assured, she ventured to make the descent. A strong arm was about her waist; a strong and supporting spirit was at her side; and from that moment she felt no fear.

The limestone, out of which the cave was formed, lay in nearly horizontal strata; and, at the bottom of Cudjo's stairs, they came upon another level floor. It was smooth and free from rubbish. A gray vault glimmered above their heads in the torchlight. The walls showed strange and grotesque forms in bas-relief, similar to those of the first gallery: here a couchant lion, so distinctly outlined that it seemed as if it must have been chiselled by human art; an Indian sitting in a posture of woe, with his face buried in his hands; an Arctic hunter wrestling with a polar bear; the head of a turbaned Turk; and, most wonderful of all, the semblance of a vine (Penn named it "Jonah's gourd"), which spread its massive branches on the wall, and, climbing under the arched roof, hung its heavy fruit above their heads.

Close by "Jonah's gourd" a little stream gushed from the side of the rock, and fell into a fathomless well. The torches were held over it, and the visitors looked down. Solid darkness was below. Carl took from his pocket a stone.

"It is the same," he said, "that Mishter Sprowl pumped his head against. I thought I should find some use for it; and now let's see."

He dropped it into the well. It sunk without a sound, the noise of its distant fall being lost in the solemn and profound murmur of the descending water.

"What make de cave, anyhow?" asked Cudjo.

"The wery question I vas going to ask," said Carl.

"It will take but a few words to tell you all I know about it," said Penn. "Water containing carbonic acid gas has the quality of dissolving such rock as this part of the mountain is made of. It is limestone; and the water, working its way through it, dissolves it as it would sugar, only very slowly. Do you understand?"

"O, yes, massa! de carbunkum asses tote it away!"

Penn smiled, and continued his explanation, addressing himself to Carl.

"So, little by little, the interior of the rock is worn, until these great cavities are formed."

"But what comes o' de rock?" cried Cudjo; "dat's de question!"

"What becomes of the sugar that dissolves in your coffee?"

"Soaks up, I reckon; so ye can't see it widout it settles."

"Just so with the limestone, Cudjo. It _soaks up_, as you say. And see!--I will show you where a little of it has settled. Notice this long white spear hanging from the roof."

"Dat? Dat ar a stun icicle. Me broke de pint off oncet, but 'pears like it growed agin. Times de water draps from it right smart."

"A good idea--a stone icicle! It grew as an icicle grows downward from the eaves. It was formed by the particles of lime in the water, which have collected there and hardened into what is called _stalactite_. These curious smooth white folds of stone under it, which look so much like a cushion, were formed by the water as it dropped. This is called _stalagmite_."

"Heap o' dem 'ar sticktights furder 'long hyar," observed Cudjo, anxious to be showing the wonders.

They came into a vast chamber, from the floor of which rose against the darkness columns resembling a grove of petrified forest trees. The flaming torches, raised aloft in the midst of them, revealed, supported by them, a wonderful gothic roof, with cornice, and frieze, and groined arches, like the interior of a cathedral. A very distinct fresco could also be seen, formed by mineral incrustations, on the ceiling and walls. On a cloudy background could be traced forms of men and beasts, of forests and flowers, armies, castles, and ships, not sculptured like the figures before described, but designed by the subtile pencil of some sprite, who, Virginia suggested, must have been the subterranean brother of the Frost.

"How wonderful!" she said. "And is it not strange how Nature copies herself, reproducing silently here in the dark the very same forms we find in the world above! Here is a rose, perfect!"

"With petals of pure white gypsum," said Penn.

Whilst they were talking, Cudjo passed on. They followed a little distance, then halted. The light of his torch had gone out in the blackness, and the sound of his footsteps had died away. Carl remained with the other torch; and there they stood together, without speaking, in the midst of immense darkness ingulfing their little isle of light, and silence the most intense.

Suddenly they heard a voice far off, singing; then two, then three voices; then a chorus filling the heart of the mountain with a strange spiritual melody. Virginia was enraptured, and Carl amazed.

Penn, who had known what was coming, looked upon them with pride and delight. At length the music, growing faint and fainter, melted and was lost in the mysterious vaults through which it had seemed to wander and soar away.

It was a minute after all was still before either spoke.

"Certainly," Virginia exclaimed, "if I had not heard of a similar effect produced in the Mammoth Cave, I should never have believed that marvellous chorus was sung by a single voice!"

"A single woice!" repeated Carl, incredulous. "There vas more as a dozen woices!"

"Right, Carl!" laughed Penn. "The first was Cudjo's; and all the rest were those, of the nymph Echo and her companions."

They continued their course through the halls of the echoes, and soon came to an arched passage, at the entrance of which Penn paused and placed the torch in a niche. A projection of the rock prevented the light from shining before them, yet their way was softly illumined from beyond, as by a dim phosphorescence. They advanced, and in a moment their eyes, grown accustomed to the obscurity, came upon a scene of surprising and magical beauty.

"The Grotto of Undine," said Penn.

It was, to all appearances, a nearly spherical concavity, some thirty yards in length, and perhaps twenty in perpendicular diameter. Carl's torch was concealed in the niche, and Cudjo's was nowhere visible; yet the whole interior was luminous with a dim and silvery halo. A narrow corridor ran round the sides, and resembled a dark ring swimming in nebulous light, midway between the upper and nether hemispheres of the wondrous hollow globe. Within this horizontal rim, floor there was none; and they stood upon its brink; and, looking up, they saw the marvellous vault all sparkling with stars and beaming with pale, pendent, taper, crystalline flames, noiseless and still; and, looking down, beheld beneath their feet, and shining with a yet more soft and dreamy lustre, the perfect counterpart of the vault above.

Penn held Virginia upon the verge. A bewildering ecstasy captivated her reason as she gazed. They seemed to be really in the grotto of some nymph who had fled the instant she saw her privacy invaded, or veiled the immortal mystery and loveliness of her charms in some mesh of the glimmering nimbus that baffled and entangled the sight. Save one or two stifled cries of rapture from Virginia and Carl, not a syllable was uttered: perfect stillness prevailed, until Penn said, in a whisper,--

"Wouldst thou like to see the face of Undine? Bend forward. Do not fear: I hold thee!"

By gentle compulsion he induced her to comply. She bent over the brink, and looked down, when, lo! out of the hazy effulgence beneath, emerged a face looking up at her--a face dimly seen, yet full of vague wonder and surprise--a face of unrivalled sweetness and beauty, Penn thought. What did Virginia think?--for it was the reflection of her own.

"O, Penn! how it startled me!"

"But isn't she a Grace? Isn't she loveliness itself?"

"I hope you think so!" she whispered, with arch frankness, a sweet coquettish confidence ravishing to his soul.

"I do!" And in the privacy of telling her so, his lips just brushed her ear. Did you ever, in whispering some secret trifle, some all-important, heavenly nothing, just brush the dearest little ear in the world with your lips? or, in listening to the syllables of divine nonsense, feel the warm breath and light touch of the magnetic thrilling mouth? Then you know something of what Penn and Virginia experienced for a brief moment in the Grotto of Undine.

Just then a duplicate glow, like a double sunrise, one part above and the other below the horizon, appeared at the farther end of the grotto. It increased, until they saw come forth from behind an upright rock an upright torch; and at the same time, from behind a suspended rock beneath, an inverted torch. Immediately after two Cudjoes came in sight; one standing erect on the rock above, and the other standing upside down on--or rather under--the rock below.

"Take your torch, Carl," said Penn, "and go around and meet him."

The boy returned to the niche; and presently two Carls, with two torches, were seen moving around the rim of the corridor, one upright above, the other walking miraculously, head downwards, below.

The two Carls had not reached the rock, when the two Cudjoes stooped, and took up each a stone and threw them. One fell _upward_ (so to speak), as the other fell downward: they met in the centre: there was a strange clash, which echoed through the hollow halls; and in a moment the entire nether hemisphere of the enchanted grotto was shattered into numberless flashing and undulating fragments.

Virginia had already perceived that the appearance of a concave sphere was an illusion produced by the ceiling lighted by Cudjo's hidden torch, and mirrored in a floor of glassy water. Yet she was entirely unprepared for this astonishing result; and at sight of the Cudjo beneath instantaneously annihilated by the plashing of a stone, she started back with a scream. Fortunately, Penn still held her close, no doubt in a fit of abstraction, forgetting that his arms were no longer necessary to prevent her falling, as when she leaned to look at the shadowy Undine.

"All those stalactites," said he, as the two torches were held towards the roof, "are of the most beautiful crystalline structure; and the spaces between are all studded with brilliant spars. The first time I was here, it was April; the mountain springs were full, and every one of these _stone icicles_ was dripping with water that percolated through the strata above. The effect was almost as surprising as what we saw before Cudjo cast the stone. The surface of the pool seemed all leaping and alive with perpetual showers of dancing pearls. But now the springs are low, or the water has found another channel. Yet this basin is always full."

"Why, so it is! I had no idea the water was so near!" And Virginia, stooping, dipped her hand.

The mirrored crystals were still coruscating and waving in the ripples, as they passed around the rim of rock, and followed Cudjo into a scarcely less beautiful chamber beyond.

Here was no water; but in its place was a floor of alabaster, from which arose a great variety of pure white stalagmites, to meet each its twin stalactite pendent from above. In some cases they did actually meet and grow together in perfect pillars, reaching from floor to roof.

"The stalagmites are very beautiful," said Virginia; "but the stalactites are still more beautiful."

"I think," said Penn, "there is a moral truth symbolized by them. As the rock above gives forth its streaming life, it benefits and beautifies the rock below, while at the same time it adorns still more richly its own beautiful breast. So it always is with Charity: it blesses him that receives, but it blesses far more richly him that gives."

"O, must we pass on?" said Virginia, casting longing eyes towards all those lovely forms.

"We are to return the same way," replied Penn. "But now Cudjo seems to be in a hurry."

"Dat's de last ob de sticktights," cried the black, standing at the end of the colonnade, and waving his torch above his head. "Now we's comin' to de run."

"Come," said Penn, "and I will show thee what Hood must have meant by the 'dark arch of the black flowing river.'"

A stupendous cavern of seemingly endless extent opened before them. Cudjo ran on ahead, shouting wildly under the hollow, reverberating dome, and waving his torch, which soon appeared far off, like a flaming star amid a night of darkness. Then there were two stars, which separated, and, standing one above the other, remained stationary.

"Listen!" said Penn. And they heard the liquid murmur of flowing water.

He took the torch from Carl, and advancing towards the right wall of the cavern, showed, flowing out of it, through a black, arched opening, a river of inky blackness. It rolled, with scarce a ripple, slow, and solemn, and still, out of that impenetrable mystery, and swept along between the wall on one side and a rocky bank on the other. By this bank they followed it, until they came to a natural bridge, formed by a limestone cliff, through which it had worn its channel, and under which it disappeared. On this bridge they found Cudjo perched above the water with his torch.

They passed the bridge without crossing,--for the farther end abutted high upon the cavern wall,--and found the river again flowing out on the lower side. Few words were spoken. The vastness of the cave, the darkness, the mystery, the inky and solemn stream pursuing its noiseless course, impressed them all. Suddenly Virginia exclaimed,--

"Light ahead!" though Carl was with her, and Cudjo now walked behind.

It was a gray glimmer, which rapidly grew to daylight as they advanced.

"It is the chasm, or sink, where the roof of the cave has fallen in," said Penn.

While he spoke, a muffled rustling of wings was heard above their heads. They looked up, and saw numbers of large black bats, startled by the torches, darting hither and thither under the dismal vault. Birds, too, flew out from their hiding-places as they advanced, and flapped and screamed in the awful gloom.

To save the torches for their return, Cudjo now extinguished them. They walked in the brightening twilight along the bank of the stream, and found, to the surprise and delight of Virginia, some delicate ferns and pale green shrubs growing in the crevices of the rock. Vegetation increased as they proceeded, until they arrived at the sink, and saw before them steep banks covered with vines, thickets, and forest trees.

The river, whose former course had evidently been stopped by the falling in of the forest, here made a curve to the right around the banks, and half disappeared in a channel it had hollowed for itself under the cliff. Here they left it, and climbed to the open day.

"How strangely yellow the sunshine looks!" said Virginia. "It seems as though I had colored glasses on. And how sultry the air!"