CHAPTER XXIX

FREEDOM ONCE MORE

The necessity for action became imperative. If he stayed cramped and wet in that position much longer, there was grave danger that he would lose the power of locomotion altogether. He could not tell how far up the crack ascended, and, of course, since he had lost his torch he had no means of lighting up the gloom, for his matches, like the bread and meat with which he had stuffed his pockets, were soaked through.

He began to climb, moving painfully forward perhaps an inch at a time. For about fifteen feet he crawled, clinging with fingers and toes. It was heart-breaking work and anyone with a less stout heart than Jack Ready would have given it up and lain down to die where they were.

But Jack was made of sterner stuff. He wormed his way forward, and found suddenly that the crack widened. Then he struck his head violently against the cavern roof.

The crack continued to widen, though, till it was possible for him to crawl into it. But the jagged edges of rock cut and tore his hands and face unmercifully.

Once within the crack, he lay still, panting. It hardly seemed worth while to go further, after all. Would it not be better to die there in the darkness without further effort? There was not the remotest probability that he was nearing a way out of the cavern, and to follow the crack further was labor lost.

Thus he meditated as he stretched himself out to rest. But when he had recovered his breath, love of life reasserted itself.

He would keep on. At any rate, one thing was certain: he could never get back now. Death lay behind him in all its grimness. Ahead, at least, there was the unknown with a fighting chance—one chance in a thousand—in his favor.

Desperately, then, he struggled on, writhing between the narrow walls. He felt as if the whole weight of a mountain was upon him, crushing his ribs, driving the breath out of his body. The darkness was so dense that it could be felt enveloping him like a velvety pall of blackness.

Again and again he thought himself stuck fast, doomed to an eternal grave in the secret bowels of the earth. But every time he managed to wiggle through the tight place and gain another that was not quite so constricted.

But it was heart-breaking work at best. Then all at once the crack widened very noticeably. Cautiously he drew himself to his feet. He judged that he was standing on a shoulder or ledge of rock, but of course, in the inky darkness, he had no means of knowing.

It was at least good to be able to stand up and feel no longer the crushing of the rock walls, like those of a living tomb.

After a little he began to move along, taking care, however, to keep close to the wall, for he did not know how wide the ledge, as he judged it, might be. For perhaps a hundred yards he progressed thus. Always before he took a step he reached out with one foot before him, fearing to encounter vacancy.

Suddenly he found he was on the edge of a void, and shrank back, clinging to the wall with the desperation of fear. It was some seconds before he dared to move again. He could feel the sweat rolling off him, the cold, pricking sweat of fright.

By a supreme effort he mastered himself. He found a loose bit of rock at his feet. Cautiously he cast it into the darkness in front of him. There was a long silence, and then, as if from miles away, came a tiny tinkle.

Jack shuddered.

He had narrowly escaped pitching head first into a bottomless abyss. He carefully retraced his way down the ledge. Suddenly his feeling fingers discovered another crack. This one ran vertically upward like a chimney, almost, at least so far as he could determine by the sense of touch.

A wild hope surged over him. This crack perhaps ran up to the surface of the earth! Recalling an old school-boy trick, he “spreadeagled” himself into the crack. He reached out his hands to either side of the “chimney” and lifted himself a little.

Then he wedged his toes in either side. Thus he painstakingly mounted, praying within himself that the walls of this natural shaft might not widen and make further progress impossible.

It was terribly slow work, though. Time and again he was on the point of giving up, but always the tough spirit of his indomitable old sea-faring ancestors kept him at his task.

Foot by foot he toiled upward, till he estimated he had climbed some thirty feet. And then suddenly: Light! The blessed light of day! High above it was, but unmistakably the light of the outside world was streaming into this hideous subterranean chamber. It gleamed down into the shaft he was painfully ascending, shining like a blessed beacon of hope. It appeared to filter through some sort of net-work of greenery.

Wild with hope, he climbed on till at last he burst his way through a canopy of creepers and vines that obscured the mouth of the natural shaft. He clambered out beneath the blessed sky. As he fell exhausted, prone on the rocks, he heard a cry.

It was his own name!

But for the life of him he could not answer. He could only lie there without thought or motion.