Part 14

Leaving the pole in the earth, we set about boring in the floor of our hut, not beginning midway between the door-posts, as we should have done if we had encountered no obstacle, but a little to one side. We proceeded here in the same manner as we had done in the bank of the lake, using a sharp-pointed pole, only we drove it down in a vertical direction; but we soon found that this would not effect our purpose, as indeed we might have known before if we had thought about it, for it was necessary that we should make a clean hole, which could not be done by driving in a pole. After considering of it, we determined to get a large piece of bamboo stalk, at least five inches across, and to drive that into the earth with the pummet we had used in building the hut. This we did, and placing the bamboo (a piece about three feet long) in the hole we had already begun to drive, we dealt it several heavy blows with the pummet, by this means driving it into the ground, and at the same time forcing some earth up into its hollow interior. Then we took the bamboo out, and carrying it outside the hut, poked all the earth out of it, and when it was empty, put it once more into the hole, and smote it again as before. This was a very tedious business, for as the hole went deeper we had to use a longer piece of bamboo, and when we had near finished the bamboo broke in the middle, and we had to dig to a depth of three feet or more around the hole before we could reach the lower portion to pull it out again, at which Billy was very wroth, because the excavation had to be filled in again, so as to bring the floor to its former level. However, we continued until the hole was seven or eight feet deep, at which depth we thought we should come to the pole we had driven through the bank; but it would have been scarcely less than a miracle if we had bored the hole to the exact spot, and we had indeed to enlarge its circumference until it measured full thirty inches across, and not till then did we come to the pole. When we did strike this we were both very joyful, for we had been working at it for four full days, and had yet got but a very little way in our design.

[Sidenote: A Surprising Discovery]

We went back now to the lake-side, and using bamboos as we had done in the hut, but with longer and larger stems, we made little by little a sort of tunnel about five inches wide running to the well we had sunk. We then sank this latter a few inches below its former level, so as to make a kind of cistern or reservoir for the water when it should flow in from the lake; and in order that the water might not run away through the soft earth, we let down a quantity of clay with which to line the bottom, intending to bake it with fire after we had rammed it until it became hard and tight. Billy took this work of ramming, performing it with a long and stout pole, which he lifted high and then brought down with great force, he always delighting to show the strength of his muscles. However, he had just made a stroke of particular power, when the beater pole slipped from his hands and he fell flat on his face over the top of the well. He was on his feet again in an amazing short time, and I laughed as he ran to the door, holding his nose, I thinking he was running to the lake to bathe it. But in a moment I was aware of a very evil smell which came without a doubt from the well we had sunk, and it was so powerful, and also noisome, that I very quickly beat a retreat too, and joined Billy outside the hut.

"I'm poisoned," says Billy, spluttering and spitting on the ground. "What did you do it for, master? I said as how 'twould be no use."

"You're a Job's comforter," said I, somewhat tartly, such a speech as Billy's only sharpening the edge of adversity, to my thinking.

"You're another," says Billy, who did not in the least know what I meant, his acquaintance with the Bible being at that time, I fear, very slight. "There's the bottom knocked out of the well, and dead men's bones below, that's what it is."

It did come into my head for a minute that we might have opened up some grave, or at least a place where human folk had been overtaken and buried by lava from the mountain; but I soon gave this up, for the earth was soft, and not a whit like lava, and as for a grave, no one would have dug it so deep down in the earth. I was just as much vexed as Billy was at this untoward event, but I think I was even more curious to learn what was beneath our unlucky well, and I went back soon into the hut, intending to examine the place. However, the evil smell was so overpowering that I was fain to seek the open air again, and it was some time, an hour or two, maybe, before the air became clear enough for us to enter the hut with any comfort. Bethinking myself that the clearing of the air showed that there might be nothing very terrible below, the foul smell being due to the sudden release of air long imprisoned, I got a length of our rope, and let it down with a stone on the end until it touched the bottom, which we found to be twice as deep as before; and when I did this, I perceived another thing which seemed to me mighty strange, which was nothing less than a current of air passing up through the well. There was, it is true, a passage now between the lake-side and the hut, but we had felt no current when the connection was first established, and yet we could not conceive of a current coming from the very bowels of the earth. Billy declared, in something of a fright, that we had got down to the roots of the mountain, whence came the steam and the hot water; but I answered that this was plainly absurd, the current of air that we felt being perfectly cool, though not very fresh.

I thought we might let down a torch into the well, whereby we should perhaps be able to see something of what was below. Accordingly we kindled a torch of kernels and let it down at the end of a rope, and very evilly it smelled, I assure you. We observed that the flame flickered a great deal until it descended to the first bottom of our well, or perhaps two or three feet deeper; then the torch burnt more steadily, but the flame did not rise straight up, but seemed to be swayed a little to either side, and I could not help thinking, by the look of it, that it was burning in a greater space than when it was in our narrow well-shaft. Considering of some means of proving whether this was so or not, I could at first see none, short of enlarging the shaft until one of us could descend it, which indeed neither Billy nor I was disposed to attempt. It was next day when an idea came into my head, and that was occasioned by my seeing the spring-back of Billy's bow when he shot at the running man, at which we exercised ourselves now and again, seeing that we might have real men to shoot at some day. The spring of the bow, I say, gave me a notion, and taking a flexible strip of wood of the same tree, I tied one end of it to a long pole, and then bent it double, not fastening it in that position, but inserting it thus bent into the shaft, the sides of which prevented it from springing back. Then I lowered the pole, and the bent piece of wood scraped the sides of the well until it reached what had been the bottom and a little beyond it; but then, as I still let down the pole, the bent wood sprang loose, like as Billy's bow did, which showed very plainly that the shaft was much wider below.

This discovery perplexed, nay, disquieted us. For one thing, it was a mercy that we had not lighted on this hollow chamber, for such it must be, when we were driving in the posts for our hut, for then we might have broken our necks. As yet we were ignorant of the extent of this open space, though we knew its depth, nor could we tell whether it in any way endangered the firmness of the hut. Billy said that if he had known there was such a cellar beneath us he would not have lifted a hand to help me build, and I own that if we had discovered it when we were beginning to build, I should have assuredly chosen another situation. But after spending so many months of hard work in putting up our hut, I was very loath to leave it now and begin all over again, though it was a staggering thought that at any moment of the day or night we might sink, and the hut too, and maybe be cast into another hole, for we could not tell but that the second bottom might give way like the first. Moreover, even supposing that our hut was no less safe than before, all the labour that we had been put to in devising a means of supplying ourselves with water from the lake had gone for nought. I think this was the heaviest blow we had had since we took up our abode on the island, and for a time we stood stock-still, contemplating the dark hole that was the grave, so to speak, of our hopes.

CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH

OF OUR SUBTERRANEOUS ADVENTURE, AND THE MANNER IN WHICH THE WILD DOGS PROFITED BY OUR ABSENCE

"Billy," said I, after we had stood silent a good while, "we must find out what is below."

"What's the good?" says Billy; "and how can you do it? Neither of us can scrooge ourselves down through this hole, and I ain't a-going to try, that's certain."

"But you can help to make the hole wider," I replied.

"And suppose I fall in," says he, "who'll pull me out?"

"I should certainly do my best," said I.

"And suppose you fall in too?" says he, being very persistent.

"Then we shall help each other out," said I.

"And suppose we find ourselves in the old smoker's kitchen, or get buried alive or something?" says Billy.

"We won't suppose any more, but just set to work," said I. "I will dig out the earth, and you can carry it away, and then there'll be no chance of your tumbling in."

The matter being put thus, Billy would by no means agree to it, but insisted that he would take his turn with me at digging. He asked me, however, how the earth was to be carried away, for if we did it with our hands it would take a month of Sundays. I answered that we must certainly make some baskets, which was a pretty easy matter after a little practice, there being plenty of rushes and such-like things growing at the borders of the lake. Having made two very fair baskets, that would hold about a bushel apiece, we began with our spades to cut away the earth around the hole, Billy carrying it outside the hut when I dug, and I doing the same when he dug. This work was exceeding laborious, since when digging we had to be very careful not to let the earth fall down the shaft and choke it up, and also the basketfuls of earth had to be hauled up every few minutes. We were several days at the work before we came to the bamboo pipe we had driven in from the lake side--not, of course, that we did nothing else, having our other duties to attend to, and besides we now went up to our watch-tower three times, and sometimes four, every day, so that the savages should not come in their canoes and take us by surprise.

[Sidenote: The Cavern]

Having got down to the pipe, which, as I have said, was but a few inches above the cavity into which we had broken, we saw that we must be even more careful, for if the earth should give way all of a sudden, as it did before, we might for all we knew be hurled into a bottomless abyss. All the time we had been digging we had felt the current of cool air striking upward against us, from which it was plain that the chamber below was not a perfectly closed vault, and the only comfort we had of this was that we were certainly not coming to the old smoker's kitchen, as Billy called it, for then the air would have been hot. To avoid this headlong fall, I considered we should now cease to stand on the ledge of earth at the side of the hole, and rig up a rope ladder which we might attach securely to the doorposts above. Billy was digging when this idea came into my head, he being lighter than I, and after I told him of it he scrambled up very quickly by means of steps we had cut in the side, confessing he was glad to get out in safety.

It took us some time to make a rope ladder, but when it was done, and fastened to the doorposts, I descended and hacked away with my spade at the sides of the hole below me until I had made it big enough for my body to go through. Then I got Billy to hand down to me a lighted torch, and bending as low as I could, I clung to the ladder with one hand, and with the other held the torch in the space below, being nearly suffocated by its stinking fumes. However, by moving the torch backwards and forwards I made out that the space was a small chamber, oblong in shape, but not regular, and with a floor, but, so far as I could see, no outlet, though I knew there must be one, because of the current of air. Feeling by no means sure of the depth of the floor below me, I clambered up again and pulled the ladder after me, and we lengthened it by some three feet before I descended again. By the light of my torch I then saw that I could drop to the floor without any danger, and I let go the ladder, and fell upon my feet on hard rock.

"What cheer, master?" calls out Billy, with his face close to the top of the shaft above. I told him that I was safe and what manner of place I was in, and said I would explore further, and when I did so I found that we had no need to trouble ourselves about the safety of our hut, because the walls of this underground chamber were of hard rock, like the rocks on the sides of the mountain, and the roof the same, except at the place where we had dug our shaft. How this came to be I did not trouble to think,[1] nor did it concern us, the great matter for us being that our hut had a solid foundation, which was a great comfort. When I told this to Billy, by shouting up through the shaft, the sound of my voice echoing very strangely, he cried back that he was glad to hear it and that he was coming down to see. "No, no," I cried at this; "you keep guard above while I seek further; and besides, the ladder does not reach the ground, and perhaps you couldn't get up again."

"Then how will you get up, master?" says Billy.

"Why, you can draw the ladder up while I go exploring, and by the time I come back you can lengthen it," was my answer.

This he agreed to do, only he begged me not to be long.

[Sidenote: A Tunnel]

When I came to examine the chamber, I found it to be neither so large nor so lofty as I had first supposed. The general height of it was not above five feet, though in parts it rose to ten feet or more. I had soon made a tour about the chamber, the compass of which was perhaps sixty or seventy feet, and in one corner of it I at last discovered an opening, through which, I did not doubt, came the current of air I have before mentioned. It was, as I found when I held my torch to it, a very low and narrow passage, not above four feet high, and the draught of air was so strong that it made my torch flare, and, indeed, was like to blow it out. This made me consider whether I had not better rest content and go no further; but curiosity was strong within me, and so I went into the passage, or tunnel, having to bend my body very low, and crept along with great caution, holding the torch in front of me lest I came unawares upon a chasm and broke my neck. The passage seemed to me to incline slightly downward, though I could not be sure of this, since there were not only several crooks and turns in it, so that not many yards of it were straight, but also it was in some parts pretty near choked with rocks and stones, which I supposed had fallen from the roof and sides. However, I picked my way among these obstacles when they occurred, and found as I went on that the passage became both wider and loftier, so that I was able to stand upright.

After I had gone some distance through this tunnel, wondering whether it was natural or had been made by men's hands, and inclining to the former belief, I perceived that it was joined by another passage which ran into it from my right hand, and the two passages thus joined in one became a tunnel which increased both in width and height the further I went. Whereas at starting from the cavern I had had to bend low, with little space on either side of me, I now found myself in a passage which in some parts was as much as twenty feet high, as near as I could guess in the deceitful light of my torch, and so wide that five or six men could easily have walked abreast in it. And as I still kept my eyes cast down, being heedful of my footing, I perceived by and by on the floor of the passage sundry small whitish objects which, when I stooped to examine them, I found to be shells, and they became more numerous the further I went. I began now to question with myself whether this tunnel did not communicate with the sea, and whether the sea ever came up through it so far into the interior of the island, for the cavern whence I had started on this journey was directly below our hut, and that was situate at least half a mile from the sea-shore.

I went on, being eager to satisfy myself on this point, and holding my torch about the level of my head, when all at once I felt the skin of my hand scorched, and, looking up, saw that the flame was burning very low, which had escaped me, so much were my thoughts taken up. I had no mind to pursue this journey in darkness, for though I had come very well to this point, I knew not whereto the tunnel would bring me, nor what perils might be lurking in the way. Accordingly I turned myself about, purposing to acquaint Billy with what I had discovered, and to come again, either with him or alone, with sufficient light to hold out to the end. But I soon saw, to my exceeding discomfort, that I had already presumed too much upon the endurance of my torch, which was flickering lower and lower, and within a little, though I made what haste I could, went out altogether. At this I was mightily vexed, though not alarmed, for the floor of the tunnel was perfectly sound, albeit rough, and I did not look for the least difficulty in making my way back to the cavern. Though not alarmed, I say, I was vexed, for I could not go nearly so fast in the dark, and I began to think that Billy might be a little uneasy at my long absence. As to myself, there was only one thing to trouble about, and that was to keep to the right hand, so that I should not fail of re-entering the passage by which I had come when I arrived at the place where the other passage joined with it. To make sure on this point I felt with my hand along the wall at my right, and found this a help to me for some distance; but by and by I had to leave it, so as to get past some rocks that stood in my way, and in a little while after I returned to it I stumbled clean over another obstacle, hurting my hands and knees, though luckily my head did not strike the ground.

[Sidenote: Lost]

When I rose up, I could not find the wall at once, the passage here being exceedingly rough with loose rocks and stones. I stumbled on, and now for the first time the thought came into my head, how awful it would be if a man were lost in such an underground passage as this, not at first thinking of this plight as likely to be mine, though soon I did begin to be very uneasy, and indeed I was almost overcome with horror when all of a sudden I thought, "What if there be a perfect network of these passages in the island, and I can never light on the cavern again?" I wished now very heartily that I had let Billy come down to me when he offered it, but there was no use in wishing, so I groped my way onward, having now got my hand upon the wall again.

I had noticed for some time that the floor of the tunnel was ascending, and it seemed to me steeper than I had thought it to be when I came the other way; but I paid little heed to this, because a hill always seems steeper when you ascend than when you descend. But all of a sudden I felt that the inclination was downward, and I was trying to recollect if I had gone up and then down as I came from the cavern, when I felt something cold about my feet, and, taking a step forward, splashed in water. Instantly I turned about and rushed back, stumbling and falling, and in a great dismay, for I knew now that I had lost my bearings. There had been no water in the passage when I came; either water had rushed into it suddenly, though how that could be I knew not, or else I had come into another passage. Whichever it might be, my situation was exceeding serious, for I might be drowned, or I might wander for hours and never come to the cavern. I picked myself up when I fell in my haste, and as I leant against the wall to recover myself, something scurried past my feet, which made me shiver until I thought that it could not be more than a rat or some other small beast. But being now so confused that I knew not whether I had come from right or left, I lifted up my voice and shouted the seaman's call "Ahoy!" for if I was anywhere near the cavern, Billy might hear me, and that familiar word would bring him, I did not doubt, to my help. I was startled by what ensued upon my shout, for the whole space about me was filled with noise, which at first I did not know to be the reverberation of my own voice. The noise, the like of which I suppose had never been heard in that place before, terrified all the denizens of it, and I felt several small animals brush against my legs as they scurried past. When the sounds had rolled away, I listened very intently for some answering cry, but there was none, even though I shouted again, and I could not but conclude that the din, great as it was, had failed to reach Billy's ears. And since it now seemed plain that I must depend on myself alone, and to stay still where I was would not help me a jot, I began in sheer desperation to grope my way along the passage, not knowing in the least whether I was going right or wrong. But supposing that I had overshot the entrance to the passage leading back to the cavern, and that I was now retracing my steps, I crept along by the wall on my left hand, every now and again stopping to shout and listen, but always in vain. And it came into my mind presently that while the sound of my voice might carry a good way along the portion of the tunnel in which I then was, yet it would not penetrate far along the passage that ran back at a very sharp angle from it, so that I would do better to save my breath until I arrived at the fork, and I went on again, holding my peace.