In Search of the Castaways; or the Children of Captain Grant

CHAPTER XII STRANGELY LIBERATED

JUST as the sun was sink­ing be­yond Lake Taupo, be­hind the peaks of Tuhahua and Pukepapu, the cap­tives were con­duct­ed back to their prison. They were not to leave it again till the tops of the Wahi­ti Ranges were lit with the first fires of day.

They had one night in which to pre­pare for death. Over­come as they were with hor­ror and fa­tigue, they took their last meal to­geth­er.

“We shall need all our strength,” Gle­nar­van had said, “to look death in the face. We must show these sav­ages how Eu­ro­peans can die.”

The meal end­ed. La­dy He­le­na re­peat­ed the evening prayer aloud, her com­pan­ions, bare-​head­ed, re­peat­ed it af­ter her. Who does not turn his thoughts to­ward God in the hour of death? This done, the pris­on­ers em­braced each oth­er. Mary Grant and He­le­na, in a cor­ner of the hut, lay down on a mat. Sleep, which keeps all sor­row in abeyance, soon weighed down their eye­lids; they slept in each oth­er’s arms, over­come by ex­haus­tion and pro­longed watch­ing.

Then Gle­nar­van, tak­ing his friends aside, said: “My dear friends, our lives and the lives of these poor wom­en are in God’s hands. If it is de­creed that we die to-​mor­row, let us die brave­ly, like Chris­tian men, ready to ap­pear with­out ter­ror be­fore the Supreme Judge. God, who reads our hearts, knows that we had a no­ble end in view. If death awaits us in­stead of suc­cess, it is by His will. Stern as the de­cree may seem, I will not re­pine. But death here, means not death on­ly, it means tor­ture, in­sult, per­haps, and here are two ladies–“

Gle­nar­van’s voice, firm till now, fal­tered. He was silent a mo­ment, and hav­ing over­come his emo­tion, he said, ad­dress­ing the young cap­tain:

“John, you have promised Mary what I promised La­dy He­le­na. What is your plan?”

“I be­lieve,” said John, “that in the sight of God I have a right to ful­fill that promise.”

“Yes, John; but we are un­armed.”

“No!” replied John, show­ing him a dag­ger. “I snatched it from Kara-​Tete when he fell at your feet. My Lord, whichev­er of us sur­vives the oth­er will ful­fill the wish of La­dy He­le­na and Mary Grant.”

Af­ter these words were said, a pro­found si­lence en­sued. At last the Ma­jor said: “My friends, keep that to the last mo­ment. I am not an ad­vo­cate of ir­re­me­di­able mea­sures.”

“I did not speak for our­selves,” said Gle­nar­van. “Be it as it may, we can face death! Had we been alone, I should ere now have cried, ‘My friends, let us make an ef­fort. Let us at­tack these wretch­es!’ But with these poor girls–“

At this mo­ment John raised the mat, and count­ed twen­ty-​five na­tives keep­ing guard on the Ware-​Atoua. A great fire had been light­ed, and its lurid glow threw in­to strong re­lief the ir­reg­ular out­lines of the “pah.” Some of the sav­ages were sit­ting round the bra­zier; the oth­ers stand­ing mo­tion­less, their black out­lines re­lieved against the clear back­ground of flame. But they all kept watch­ful guard on the hut con­fid­ed to their care.

It has been said that be­tween a vig­ilant jail­er and a pris­on­er who wish­es to es­cape, the chances are in fa­vor of the pris­on­er; the fact is, the in­ter­est of the one is keen­er than that of the oth­er. The jail­er may for­get that he is on guard; the pris­on­er nev­er for­gets that he is guard­ed. The cap­tive thinks of­ten­er of es­cap­ing than the jail­er of pre­vent­ing his flight, and hence we hear of fre­quent and won­der­ful es­capes.

But in the present in­stance ha­tred and re­venge were the jail­ers– not an in­dif­fer­ent warder; the pris­on­ers were not bound, but it was be­cause bonds were use­less when five-​and-​twen­ty men were watch­ing the on­ly egress from the Ware-​Atoua.

This house, with its back to the rock which closed the fortress, was on­ly ac­ces­si­ble by a long, nar­row promon­to­ry which joined it in front to the plateau on which the “pah” was erect­ed. On its two oth­er sides rose point­ed rocks, which jut­ted out over an abyss a hun­dred feet deep. On that side de­scent was im­pos­si­ble, and had it been pos­si­ble, the bot­tom was shut in by the enor­mous rock. The on­ly out­let was the reg­ular door of the Ware-​Atoua, and the Maories guard­ed the promon­to­ry which unit­ed it to the “pah” like a draw­bridge. All es­cape was thus hope­less, and Gle­nar­van hav­ing tried the walls for the twen­ti­eth time, was com­pelled to ac­knowl­edge that it was so.

The hours of this night, wretched as they were, slipped away. Thick dark­ness had set­tled on the moun­tain. Nei­ther moon nor stars pierced the gloom. Some gusts of wind whis­tled by the sides of the “pah,” and the posts of the house creaked: the fire out­side re­vived with the puffs of wind, and the flames sent fit­ful gleams in­to the in­te­ri­or of Ware-​Atoua. The group of pris­on­ers was lit up for a mo­ment; they were ab­sorbed in their last thoughts, and a death­like si­lence reigned in the hut.

It might have been about four o’clock in the morn­ing when the Ma­jor’s at­ten­tion was called to a slight noise which seemed to come from the foun­da­tion of the posts in the wall of the hut which abut­ted on the rock. Mc­Nabbs was at first in­dif­fer­ent, but find­ing the noise con­tin­ue, he lis­tened; then his cu­rios­ity was aroused, and he put his ear to the ground; it sound­ed as if some­one was scrap­ing or hol­low­ing out the ground out­side.

As soon as he was sure of it, he crept over to Gle­nar­van and John Man­gles, and startling them from their melan­choly thoughts, led them to the end of the hut.

“Lis­ten,” said he, mo­tion­ing them to stoop.

The scratch­ing be­came more and more au­di­ble; they could hear the lit­tle stones grate on a hard body and roll away.

“Some an­imal in his bur­row,” said John Man­gles.

Gle­nar­van struck his fore­head.

“Who knows?” said he, “it might be a man.”

“An­imal or man,” an­swered the Ma­jor, “I will soon find out!”

Wil­son and Ol­bi­nett joined their com­pan­ions, and all unit­ed to dig through the wall–John with his dag­ger, the oth­ers with stones tak­en from the ground, or with their nails, while Mul­rady, stretched along the ground, watched the na­tive guard through a crevice of the mat­ting.

These sav­ages sit­ting mo­tion­less around the fire, sus­pect­ed noth­ing of what was go­ing on twen­ty feet off.

The soil was light and fri­able, and be­low lay a bed of si­li­cious tu­fa; there­fore, even with­out tools, the aper­ture deep­ened quick­ly. It soon be­came ev­ident that a man, or men, cling­ing to the sides of the “pah,” were cut­ting a pas­sage in­to its ex­te­ri­or wall. What could be the ob­ject? Did they know of the ex­is­tence of the pris­on­ers, or was it some pri­vate en­ter­prise that led to the un­der­tak­ing?

The pris­on­ers re­dou­bled their ef­forts. Their fin­gers bled, but still they worked on; af­ter half an hour they had gone three feet deep; they per­ceived by the in­creased sharp­ness of the sounds that on­ly a thin lay­er of earth pre­vent­ed im­me­di­ate com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

Some min­utes more passed, and the Ma­jor with­drew his hand from the stroke of a sharp blade. He sup­pressed a cry.

John Man­gles, in­sert­ing the blade of his poniard, avoid­ed the knife which now pro­trud­ed above the soil, but seized the hand that wield­ed it.

It was the hand of a wom­an or child, a Eu­ro­pean! On

V. IV Verne nei­ther side had a word been ut­tered. It was ev­ident­ly the cue of both sides to be silent.

“Is it Robert?” whis­pered Gle­nar­van.

But soft­ly as the name was breathed, Mary Grant, al­ready awak­ened by the sounds in the hut, slipped over to­ward Gle­nar­van, and seiz­ing the hand, all stained with earth, she cov­ered it with kiss­es.

“My dar­ling Robert,” said she, nev­er doubt­ing, “it is you! it is you!”

“Yes, lit­tle sis­ter,” said he, “it is I am here to save you all; but be very silent.”

“Brave lad!” re­peat­ed Gle­nar­van.

“Watch the sav­ages out­side,” said Robert.

Mul­rady, whose at­ten­tion was dis­tract­ed for a mo­ment by the ap­pear­ance of the boy, re­sumed his post.

“It is all right,” said he. “There are on­ly four awake; the rest are asleep.”

A minute af­ter, the hole was en­larged, and Robert passed from the arms of his sis­ter to those of La­dy He­le­na. Round his body was rolled a long coil of flax rope.

“My child, my child,” mur­mured La­dy He­le­na, “the sav­ages did not kill you!”

“No, madam,” said he; “I do not know how it hap­pened, but in the scuf­fle I got away; I jumped the bar­ri­er; for two days I hid in the bush­es, to try and see you; while the tribe were busy with the chief’s fu­ner­al, I came and re­con­noi­tered this side of the path, and I saw that I could get to you. I stole this knife and rope out of the desert hut. The tufts of bush and the branch­es made me a lad­der, and I found a kind of grot­to al­ready hol­lowed out in the rock un­der this hut; I had on­ly to bore some feet in soft earth, and here I am.”

Twen­ty noise­less kiss­es were his re­ward.

“Let us be off!” said he, in a de­cid­ed tone.

“Is Pa­ganel be­low?” asked Gle­nar­van.

“Mon­sieur Pa­ganel?” replied the boy, amazed.

“Yes; is he wait­ing for us?”

“No, my Lord; but is he not here?” in­quired Robert.

“No, Robert!” an­swered Mary Grant.

“Why! have you not seen him?” asked Gle­nar­van. “Did you lose each oth­er in the con­fu­sion? Did you not get away to­geth­er?”

“No, my Lord!” said Robert, tak­en aback by the dis­ap­pear­ance of his friend Pa­ganel.

“Well, lose no more time,” said the Ma­jor. “Wher­ev­er Pa­ganel is, he can­not be in worse plight than our­selves. Let us go.”

Tru­ly, the mo­ments were pre­cious. They had to fly. The es­cape was not very dif­fi­cult, ex­cept the twen­ty feet of per­pen­dic­ular fall out­side the grot­to.

Af­ter that the slope was prac­ti­ca­ble to the foot of the moun­tain. From this point the pris­on­ers could soon gain the low­er val­leys; while the Maories, if they per­ceived the flight of the pris­on­ers, would have to make a long round to catch them, be­ing un­aware of the gallery be­tween the Ware-​Atoua and the out­er rock.

The es­cape was com­menced, and ev­ery pre­cau­tion was tak­en. The cap­tives passed one by one through the nar­row pas­sage in­to the grot­to. John Man­gles, be­fore leav­ing the hut, dis­posed of all the ev­idences of their work, and in his turn slipped through the open­ing and let down over it the mats of the house, so that the en­trance to the gallery was quite con­cealed.

The next thing was to de­scend the ver­ti­cal wall to the slope be­low, and this would have been im­prac­ti­ca­ble, but that Robert had brought the flax rope, which was now un­rolled and fixed to a pro­ject­ing point of rock, the end hang­ing over.

John Man­gles, be­fore his friends trust­ed them­selves to this flax rope, tried it; he did not think it very strong; and it was of im­por­tance not to risk them­selves im­pru­dent­ly, as a fall would be fa­tal.

“This rope,” said he, “will on­ly bear the weight of two per­sons; there­fore let us go in ro­ta­tion. Lord and La­dy Gle­nar­van first; when they ar­rive at the bot­tom, three pulls at the rope will be a sig­nal to us to fol­low.”

“I will go first,” said Robert. “I dis­cov­ered a deep hol­low at the foot of the slope where those who come down can con­ceal them­selves and wait for the rest.”

“Go, my boy,” said Gle­nar­van, press­ing Robert’s hand.

Robert dis­ap­peared through the open­ing out of the grot­to. A minute af­ter, the three pulls at the cord in­formed them the boy had alight­ed safe­ly.

Gle­nar­van and La­dy He­le­na im­me­di­ate­ly ven­tured out of the grot­to. The dark­ness was still very great, though some gray­ish streaks were al­ready vis­ible on the east­ern sum­mits.

The bit­ing cold of the morn­ing re­vived the poor young la­dy. She felt stronger and com­menced her per­ilous de­scent.

Gle­nar­van first, then La­dy He­le­na, let them­selves down along the rope, till they came to the spot where the per­pen­dic­ular wall met the top of the slope. Then Gle­nar­van go­ing first and sup­port­ing his wife, be­gan to de­scend back­ward.

He felt for the tufts and grass and shrubs able to af­ford a foothold; tried them and then placed La­dy He­le­na’s foot on them. Some birds, sud­den­ly awak­ened, flew away, ut­ter­ing fee­ble cries, and the fugi­tives trem­bled when a stone loos­ened from its bed rolled to the foot of the moun­tain.

They had reached half-​way down the slope, when a voice was heard from the open­ing of the grot­to.

“Stop!” whis­pered John Man­gles.

Gle­nar­van, hold­ing with one hand to a tuft of tetrag­onia, with the oth­er hold­ing his wife, wait­ed with breath­less anx­iety.

Wil­son had had an alarm. Hav­ing heard some un­usu­al noise out­side the Ware-​Atoua, he went back in­to the hut and watched the Maories from be­hind the mat. At a sign from him, John stopped Gle­nar­van.

One of the war­riors on guard, star­tled by an un­usu­al sound, rose and drew near­er to the Ware-​Atoua. He stood still about two paces from the hut and lis­tened with his head bent for­ward. He re­mained in that at­ti­tude for a minute that seemed an hour, his ear in­tent, his eye peer­ing in­to the dark­ness. Then shak­ing his head like one who sees he is mis­tak­en, he went back to his com­pan­ions, took an arm­ful of dead wood, and threw it in­to the smoul­der­ing fire, which im­me­di­ate­ly re­vived. His face was light­ed up by the flame, and was free from any look of doubt, and af­ter hav­ing glanced to where the first light of dawn whitened the east­ern sky, stretched him­self near the fire to warm his stiff­ened limbs.

“All’s well!” whis­pered Wil­son.

John sig­naled to Gle­nar­van to re­sume his de­scent.

Gle­nar­van let him­self gen­tly down the slope; soon La­dy He­le­na and he land­ed on the nar­row track where Robert wait­ed for them.

The rope was shak­en three times, and in his turn John Man­gles, pre­ced­ing Mary Grant, fol­lowed in the dan­ger­ous route.

He ar­rived safe­ly; he re­joined Lord and La­dy Gle­nar­van in the hol­low men­tioned by Robert.

Five min­utes af­ter, all the fugi­tives had safe­ly es­caped from the Ware-​Atoua, left their re­treat, and keep­ing away from the in­hab­it­ed shores of the lakes, they plunged by nar­row paths in­to the re­cess­es of the moun­tains.

They walked quick­ly, try­ing to avoid the points where they might be seen from the pah. They were quite silent, and glid­ed among the bush­es like shad­ows. Whith­er? Where chance led them, but at any rate they were free.

To­ward five o’clock, the day be­gan to dawn, bluish clouds mar­bled the up­per stra­tum of clouds. The misty sum­mits be­gan to pierce the morn­ing mists. The orb of day was soon to ap­pear, and in­stead of giv­ing the sig­nal for their ex­ecu­tion, would, on the con­trary, an­nounce their flight.

It was of vi­tal im­por­tance that be­fore the de­ci­sive mo­ment ar­rived they should put them­selves be­yond the reach of the sav­ages, so as to put them off their track. But their progress was slow, for the paths were steep. La­dy Gle­nar­van climbed the slopes, sup­port­ed, not to say car­ried, by Gle­nar­van, and Mary Grant leaned on the arm of John Man­gles; Robert, ra­di­ant with joy, tri­umphant at his suc­cess, led the march, and the two sailors brought up the rear.

An­oth­er half an hour and the glo­ri­ous sun would rise out of the mists of the hori­zon. For half an hour the fugi­tives walked on as chance led them. Pa­ganel was not there to take the lead. He was now the ob­ject of their anx­iety, and whose ab­sence was a black shad­ow be­tween them and their hap­pi­ness. But they bore steadi­ly east­ward, as much as pos­si­ble, and faced the gor­geous morn­ing light. Soon they had reached a height of 500 feet above Lake Taupo, and the cold of the morn­ing, in­creased by the al­ti­tude, was very keen. Dim out­lines of hills and moun­tains rose be­hind one an­oth­er; but Gle­nar­van on­ly thought how best to get lost among them. Time enough by and by to see about es­cap­ing from the labyrinth.

At last the sun ap­peared and sent his first rays on their path.

Sud­den­ly a ter­rif­ic yell from a hun­dred throats rent the air. It came from the pah, whose di­rec­tion Gle­nar­van did not know. Be­sides, a thick veil of fog, which, spread at his feet, pre­vent­ed any dis­tinct view of the val­leys be­low.

But the fugi­tives could not doubt that their es­cape had been dis­cov­ered; and now the ques­tion was, would they be able to elude pur­suit? Had they been seen? Would not their track be­tray them?

At this mo­ment the fog in the val­ley lift­ed, and en­veloped them for a mo­ment in a damp mist, and at three hun­dred feet be­low they per­ceived the swarm­ing mass of fran­tic na­tives.

While they looked they were seen. Re­newed howls broke forth, min­gled with the bark­ing of dogs, and the whole tribe, af­ter vain­ly try­ing to scale the rock of Ware-​Atoua, rushed out of the pah, and has­tened by the short­est paths in pur­suit of the pris­on­ers who were fly­ing from their vengeance.