Down Under (29 page)

They came back to where they had started. Rose Anne looked at the arch. Would they have to crawl through that dreadful place again with the water against them? She supposed they would if Oliver said so, and if there were no other way. She turned with a shudder. The torch was in her hand, and as she turned, the beam turned too and ran slanting to the roof. Rose Anne cried out,

“Oliver, look—there's a hole!”

They both looked with all their eyes. The hole was half way up the wall, like a window with a blunted corner. If it had been anywhere else, they might have seen it before, but they had come up from the water blind and dripping, and when they could see again their eyes were all for the lake and its rocky shore. The opening was in the wall of the cave, but so close into the corner that it had been behind them and the beam had never touched it at all. The rock fell from it ledge by ledge to where they stood.

They climbed, and found a passage running on the level—a passage, not a cave. The sides were rough, but they had been shaped by men. For the first time hope really entered Oliver's heart.

The passage went on a long way. Twice it forked. Each time they took the right-hand fork, because it was in Oliver's mind to get back to the water. If they could strike it again they would have something to follow, and they would at least not have to be afraid of thirst.

Rose Anne walked wearily. She was very tired. The immediate excitement of the escape had died down. She thought the black passage would never end.

CHAPTER XXXIV

It was hours later that they heard faintly the sound of flowing water. It was the most blessed sound in the world. They had been wandering, with all sense of direction lost, from passage to cave and from cave to passage again. Sometimes the roof came down and they had to crawl, sometimes it rose in gloomy arches far above their heads. There was a cave that was full of stalactites, shining white in the beam of the torch like pillars of salt. Rose Anne thought dimly about Lot's wife. There was a cave that was full of strange echoes. Their very breathing came whispering back from its dark hollow sides. There was a cave where the air was so heavy that it was hard to breathe at all. There was a place where they were hemmed between narrow walls and the torch failed.

Oliver replaced the battery, but that interval of darkness was most dreadful to Rose Anne. She tried very hard not to think of what would happen when they had used this battery—and the next.

Now they stood in a cleft, and heard water lapping. It was below them. Oliver thrust the torch forward, swinging it this way and that. The beam showed them a tumbled, rocky shore, black water lapping it and stretching away to a black wall beyond. His heart went cold in him. He turned his head and said in a dry, steady voice,

“We've come back.”

Rose Anne looked over his shoulder. It was true. The sound in their ears was the sound of the stream flowing out from under the arch through which they had crawled. Their cleft was the window with the blunted corner. She was too tired to care very much.

They climbed down the ledges to the lake and drank.

It was whilst she was filling her cupped hands for the second time that she heard the sound. It came to her through the sound of the running water. She lifted her head and said in a surprised voice,

“There's something in the lake—something swimming.”

Oliver lifted his head too. The torch was behind them on a shelf in the rock. There was a sound. It might be the sound of something swimming—it might be.… He reached for the torch and sent the beam across the lake. The surface was unbroken, but there was a place where it heaved as if it had been broken, or as if it were very near to breaking. A swell moved upon it, a long, dark ripple that set towards the shore.

“Drink what you want and come,” he said, and for all that he had just been drinking, his mouth was dry.

Rose Anne, kneeling by the stream, looked up at him bewildered and said,

“What is it?”

“I don't know. Be quick!”

She drank, and they climbed back into the passage, moved wearily along it, and sat down. Oliver put out the torch. They leaned against one another and against the rocky wall, and slept a dim, uneasy sleep in which they wandered endlessly and lost one another, and met again only to part and wander on, and on, and on.

In Oliver's dream he was straining to lift a weight of stone which was crushing him. He knew that he could not lift it, because it was the roof that had fallen in with the weight of Oakham Hill behind it. But he had to go on trying, because you have to go on trying even when it isn't any good.

In Rose Anne's dream she had come into a place which was full of pillars of salt, and every pillar a woman who had tried to escape. She stared at them, and they said with one wailing voice, “You'll never get out.” Then she looked down, and she was wearing the silver dress which Louise had made for her wedding with Philip. It was so heavy that she couldn't run, and it got heavier every minute, heavy and hard, and she knew that she too was turning into a pillar of salt.

And Philip said, “Journeys end in lovers' meetings.”

She opened her eyes in a glare of light. Philip Rennard stood above them. He held an electric lamp high up so that the light fell on her, and on Oliver, and on himself. In his other hand he had an automatic pistol. He said,

“Wake up, Rose—I've come for you. I hope you're pleased to see me.”

Rose Anne stared at him. If this was part of the dream, she hoped she was going to wake up. When a dream got too bad you generally did wake up. She was very stiff. She felt Oliver move, and saw that his eyes were open. He was looking at Philip's pistol, and Philip was pointing it at him.

Oliver said, “You've found us. What are you going to do about it?”

Philip Rennard laughed.

“I'm going to take Rose back. I have a very forgiving nature.”

Rose Anne got up.

“What are you going to do with Oliver?”

Philip laughed again.

“Well, I didn't think of taking him back. I'm not quite so forgiving as that.”

A confusion of thoughts rushed into Rose Anne's mind. “He's going to shoot—Oliver will be shot—I can't bear it—if he moves, he'll shoot.”

She made a snatch at the pistol, and at the same time Oliver flung himself forward on the ground and caught Philip by the ankle. It was a desperate clutch, but there was no strength in it. His right arm was numb and the hand without feeling.

Philip kicked out and swung Rose Anne aside. Something broke in her, and she ran screaming down the passage to the cleft. There was a moment when Philip's will swung between his enemy and the woman he wanted. If she went down over the rocks in the dark, there was hardly a chance in a hundred that she would not crash. There were other chances too. He kicked out to free himself and, lamp in hand, ran down the passage after Rose Anne.

Rose Anne saw the light coming up behind, throwing her shadow before her—the black shadow of her own terror that ran as she ran, and would presently go down over the ledges into the lake as she must go, because she couldn't stop herself now, and Philip was behind her—Philip, and the light, and Philip's shadow. It came up dark and menacing—the shadow that had killed Oliver and would kill her too.

“Rose—Rose—Rose!” She heard him calling her with entreaty, with passion, with despair.

And then the light showed her the fall, the ledges, and the lake beyond. She could not stop, but she would not have stopped if she could. The extremity of fear drove her on—and down. Her foot touched the first ledge. She would have slipped if her flight had been less headlong. There was no time for slipping. The descent was a fall checked as her foot just touched one ledge after another, and the impetus carried her across the narrow belt of shore and into the lake. She went down into it and came up gasping for breath in about three feet of water. There was light all round her. Philip's lamp was shining into her eyes as she blinked the blinding drops away, and Philip was on the bottom ledge, quite near, quite dreadfully near. She looked past him and saw Oliver in the cleft. If he came down, Philip would shoot him. She saw the pistol in his hand and shuddered and backed away from the shore. The lake water was cold. It came up about her waist in an icy ring. It came up under her breast, under her armpits, very cold—like death.

Philip called to her in a striving voice.

“Rose—come back! I won't hurt you—I swear it. Rose—for God's sake—it's not safe!”

Safe—when they were all come here to their death! She went a step deeper, and felt the water touch her chin.

Philip turned, saw Oliver behind him, and fired. It vexed him to waste an enemy. Oliver should have died at leisure—by and by. But he must get him out of the way before he went into the lake after Rose Anne. He fired and Oliver fell. Rose Anne cried out, and the cave was full of echoes—dreadful echoes of violence, and pain, and the mockery of Philip's laughter.

He set the lamp on the last ledge and the pistol beside it, and came wading out into the lake.

“Rose—my darling Rose—why do you fight me like this? It's no good, you know—it's no good at all. Loddon's dead, and you're mine. You've always been mine, and there's nothing in the world that can come between us now.”

Rose Anne went back, and felt the water at her lips, and back again, and the rock rose under her feet so that she stood with her head and shoulders clear of the surface.

Philip came on. His coming sent ripples towards her. She felt behind her with her foot, and the rock went down again—down, down, and deep. When he came too near she must go down and drown there. She looked at Philip, and he at her, with the length of a few yards between them. He stood still, imploring her, with the water at his shoulders. Neither of them saw Oliver drop from the cleft and crawl along the ledge below.

“Rose—come quickly!” He stretched out his arms and took the next step. It carried him under. Rose Anne saw the black water close over his head. Then it broke again. There was a threshing and a struggling and he was up out of the hole into which he had fallen and breast-high in the water clearing his eyes.

He would have heard the sound if his own breath had not choked him. Rose Anne heard it where she stood, the sound of something that beat the water and moved through it, and made a wash which broke against her breast.

Oliver heard it, on the last ledge as he stooped to snatch the pistol. He had it and he was on his feet again. But Philip Rennard was gone. The lake heaved and boiled, and the wash came up against the shore. And Rose Anne came too, wading, stumbling, shuddering as she came, to fall into his arms and weep there, clinging to him and saying his name over and over again,

“Oliver—Oliver—
Oliver
!”

CHAPTER XXXV

He got her away and into the passage again. They had the lamp, and whatever it might cost them later, they kept it burning its precious current now. They held each other fast and talked in whispers.

“I thought you were dead.” Comforting to say it with her lips against his ear.

“I beat the pistol. I saw he was going to fire and dropped. My right arm was asleep. I wanted time. I hadn't the grip of a baby.”

“Oliver—did you see it—did you see what happened?”

“No, I didn't. I was picking up the pistol. It was all over so quickly. I heard the noise, and when I straightened up he had gone. I didn't see anything except the wash.”

Rose Anne trembled against him.

“I heard it coming and I shut my eyes—so as not to see—and he gave a sort of gasp—and I heard the water—and I heard him go—and I opened my eyes and saw you. Oliver, I thought—I thought—we were both—dead.”

Oliver said nothing. He kissed her as a man may kiss the woman whom he has lost, and found again, and found on the edge of death. They held each other close.

He said at last, “We must go on, you know.”

“I don't want to.”

“We've got to, darling. We've really got a chance now, and we mustn't throw it away. We know what isn't the right way, and we've got this much better light.”

She gave a tired sigh.

“I don't think we've got a chance. I think we're going to die. I'd rather die here—I would truly.”

“Darling!”

She lifted her head, and said with a catch in her voice,

“It's no good—I can't—I can't really. I can't, because I don't want to. I'd much, much rather sit here and die quietly. Even if I knew we were going to get out alive, I think I'd rather die here than go through those awful caves again.”

Oliver said, “All right.” He kept his arm round her and let the silence fall.

After a little time he said, “We might as well talk. Let's talk about pigeons.”

“Why?” said Rose Anne with her head on his shoulder.

“Well, I'd like to. They're very interesting. There was an old chap in our village who was a big bug in the pigeon-fancying world—bred them, and flew them, and went in for competitions, and won prizes—lots of prizes. I used to hang around and talk to him in the holidays, and he used to tell me things. Did you know that a pigeon will fly five or six hundred miles in a day?”

Rose Anne shivered.

“No, I didn't. How far do you think we have walked?”

Oliver laughed and shook her a little.

“Not five or six hundred miles. Now you listen to what old Harding told me. They take the pigeons away, you know—two, three, four hundred miles away—and they have to find their way home across country. No one quite knows how they do it. The experts quarrel over it. This is what old Harding said—he used to wag his finger at me and call me sir. He said, ‘A pigeon won't home unless it's got pluck. Some say it's instink takes them home, and some say they fly high and view the landscape over, but I say, whether or no, it's pluck that does it, sir, and if a pigeon hasn't got pluck he don't home. What brings him home is that everything in him is just set on that one thing. Hunger, and thirst, and hardship, and being dead beat—they're just nothing to him against the need he's got to get home. If he loses his way he tries again—”