CHAPTER VIII.
Charlie as Decoy—Death of the old White Man—The Fight in the Cave—The Catastrophe.
Tired out with their exertions and the continued night work the party slept soundly, and awoke at dawn to find the camp as calm and silent as if no such tragedies as they had witnessed were ever enacted in the neighbourhood.
"Terribly sultry, is it not?" said Morton; "I suppose it is because these rocks retain the heat so."
"It seems in the air. Look what a haze there is. I don't think I ever felt it so hot at this time of day. What do you say to a walk to the crater after breakfast?"
Charlie called out just then that the meal was ready, and during its progress the plan of action for the day was discussed and agreed upon.
On arriving at the crater they found it in a great state of activity, most of the pools were in violent commotion, and constantly overflowing into the crater, causing a succession of reports.
Returning to the camp they found that Columbus and two or three of the old men had arrived, all looking as mild and gentle as if they habitually lived upon milk and water.
"Look at the old scoundrel," said Morton; "his mouth is watering to see us roasting on the coals."
"I think he only wants to get rid of us and to induce us to leave Charlie behind. Now let's try him," returned Brown.
Preparations were then apparently made for departure, Charlie intimating to Columbus that he intended to go with him. The native appeared hugely delighted, and when the time for departure arrived neither he nor the others could restrain their expressions of joy. With their swags on their shoulders Morton, Brown, and Billy strode off along the track by which they had come, ostentatiously waving their hands to Charlie.
No sooner, however, were they hidden from the camp than Morton and Billy slipped aside amongst the rocks, whilst Brown plodded steadily on, making as much noise as possible. For nearly a quarter of a mile he kept his course, and then stepped on one side and stood quietly behind a boulder. After five minutes' waiting the sound of footsteps was heard, and a native came along, evidently following the track to make sure that the white men left the place, for he was unarmed and alone. He was close up before he saw Brown, and then with a frightened cry sprang away; but he was too late. Brown had hold of him, and exerting all his uncommon strength threw him heavily down amongst the rocks, where he lay stunned and quiet. Brown waited patiently for some time, but nothing could be heard; evidently one native only had been sent to watch them away.
Leaving his swag in a secure hiding-place, Brown then cautiously directed his course towards the limestone cliff, using every precaution to escape being seen. He arrived in sight of the mouth of the cave after a toilsome journey, and after cautiously reconnoitring gave a low whistle. There was no answer, but voices could be heard approaching, and peering carefully out Brown saw Columbus, Charlie, and three other old men emerge from among the rocks and enter the cave. At the same moment a low whistle sounded near him, to which he instantly replied, and in a few minutes Morton and Billy came creeping silently along and joined him.
"It's splendid," said Morton. "Columbus took Charlie on one side amongst the rocks, then he gave a signal and all the blacks came along the track and squatted down in the open space where we were camped. Columbus and three old men then went away with Charlie, whom they carefully kept hidden, and I think those are all we have to deal with; so come along, for I can't bear to let that boy stop alone with them long, although I think he's safe enough."
"We'll just rush the four of them, and then take our time examining the place and the white man—is that it?" said Brown; "but how we're to get away afterwards I can't make out."
"We must trust to chance and our rifles; I think we can manage. But come quick."
Noiselessly they stole along the narrow entrance that led into the inner cave, and cautiously peered in to be sure of their ground before making their attack; the prisoners were there and the three old men, but Columbus and Charlie were absent. "Quick!" whispered Brown, and sprang forward on to one, while Morton felled the other with a nulla nulla[[1a]] he had picked up. The third made a bolt for the entrance, uttering a shrill yell as he did so, but Billy, whether through sudden fright or not, fired his carbine at him and the black dropped dead.
Startled by the yell and report, Columbus came rushing from a dark corner of the cave; his eyes were flashing, and all the cannibal in his nature seemed aroused.
"Hit this fellow on the head!" roared Brown, releasing his struggling prisoner and grappling with the new foe.
Morton dealt the native a stunning blow with the waddy,[[1b]] and then turned to assist his comrade. Strong as Brown was, it would have been hard work for him to subdue the infuriated Columbus without assistance. Between them they got him down and bound him with straps.
[[1a]][[1b]] A native club of hard wood.
"Now for Charlie!" cried Morton, turning in the direction of the dark corner. "Something must have happened to him."
"I'm all right, old man; come with me." And Charlie showed himself at the entrance of another and inner cave.
First stopping to tell Billy to wait and watch the prisoners, and shoot them if they attempted to escape, the two friends followed their young companion, leaving a strange scene behind them—Billy Button on guard at the entrance of the passage, the savages prostrate on the ground, and the captives for the cannibal feast, who had preserved a frightened apathy throughout, still huddled together.
In a smaller cave than the one they had just quitted, lighted like it through fissures from above, the three whites found the old man seated on the sandy floor, gazing with his half sightless eyes at the unaccustomed figures, for thus much could he apparently discern. In a hasty whisper Charlie confided to them that he had been speaking to him, and thought he could make him hear.
"Try again," said Morton eagerly.
Charlie stooped down and shouted in the old man's ear, "Englishman! White man!"
A faint gleam of intelligence seemed to illuminate the poor creature's face, and he pointed eagerly forward with trembling hands. The friends followed the direction of his hands, and saw a heap of objects piled in a dusky corner of the cavern, and Brown strode forward to examine them. The attention of the other two was confined to the ancient white man, who seemed strangely moved. He tried to rise and speak, but could only struggle ineffectually. It was awful to watch his convulsed features, and think what secrets he carried hidden in his breast, secrets that time had forbidden him to reveal. At last with panting effort he half rose up, and with a quavering hoarse voice cried distinctly:
"Yes! Englishman! White man!" and with a choking gasp fell back dead.
Awe-struck and startled the whites looked at the body of the unfortunate man who had dragged out such a long term of existence amongst savages. Not a doubt was in their minds but that they were gazing on one of the survivors of Leichhardt's lost party, whose fate had long been such a mystery. Now the very shock of their coming seemed to have shaken the last sands of life out, and he had died before their eyes with the story of the past untold.
"Look!" said Charlie, stooping gently over the body and indicating the swarthy breast.
There, almost undecipherable by reason of the darkened colour of the skin, was the tatooed mark of a rude anchor.
Suddenly their meditations were interrupted by a series of frantic yells from the outside cave, and the report of a rifle. Rushing out, the cause was instantly explained. Billy's attention had wandered to one of the lady captives, and Columbus had, unobserved by him, freed himself from the hastily-tied straps. The first thing Billy knew about it was a blow from a club, and the back view of a figure flying up the entrance-passage, at whom he hastily and vainly fired, as was pretty evident by the fierce shouts of Columbus outside, calling his comrades to him.
"Get your cartridges ready; we must fight for all we're worth," cried Brown.
Almost as he spoke there was a rush of flying feet and a roar of voices at the entrance.
"Fire like blazes!" ordered Morton, setting an example, which was followed by the others, until the white smoke nearly filled the cavern. Madly and fanatically the natives dashed up the narrow passage; but with four breech-loaders playing on them, the terrible, unknown lightning and deafening thunder smiting their foremost down, two and three at a time, the attempt was hopeless; they fell back, and for a moment or two there was silence.
"Top! Top! Look out!" suddenly screamed Billy, and none too soon.
Clambering up the cliff the blacks were on the plateau forming the roof of the cave, and were forcing their way down through the many cracks and fissures. Hastily abandoning their position, the whites had scant time to escape into the open air over the bodies of those they had shot down. Here, to their astonishment, they found themselves unopposed by the cannibals, who had all made for the top of the cliff to gain entrance into the cave.
"What's up, Brown?" cried Morton; "you look like a ghost! Are you hit?"
"No, I don't think so, but I feel queer, and you look sick. For Heaven's sake come over to the rocks, quick!"
An awful feeling of nausea and giddiness suddenly and strangely attacked them all. Reeling to the rocks in front of the cavern they threw themselves down in what shade they could find, utterly regardless of their enemies.
The air was pulsating with fiery heat, the reports from the crater followed each other with scarce any interval, and the earth seemed rocking beneath them. From the mouth of the cavern issued a melancholy wail, the death-chant over the dead white man.
By a great effort Morton rallied himself, for it suddenly flashed across him what was going to happen.
"Come on!" he shouted, staggering to his feet and making to where an overhanging boulder afforded some slight shelter. With difficulty the others followed him. As they crouched down, completely unmanned, they felt the ground tremble violently; then came a terrific report, as if the very rocks were rent asunder, and the air was filled with blinding steam and scalding mud.
Dead silence reigned for nearly ten minutes, then Brown gave a deep sigh and raised his head.
"All aboard!" he cried out. "Anybody hurt?"
One by one they answered, stood up, and looked around.
"Pretty warm while it lasted," said Morton; "that's an experience one does not get every day. Those fellows in the cavern were best off."
"Were they?" cried Brown excitedly. "Great Scott! Look there!"
He pointed to the brow of the cliff, and they all saw what had happened. The mouth of the cavern had disappeared, and the shape of the cliff was changed. The earth-tremor they had just experienced had brought down the roof of the cave, and their late enemies and their wretched captives lay buried beneath countless tons of rock.
The death-wail they had heard had been the death-wail of a whole tribe. The cannibals and their victims were in one common tomb.
"And the secret of that white man lies buried there too," said Morton, after a long pause.
"No, I hope not," replied Brown. "I brought something away from that heap the old man pointed to;" and from the bosom of his shirt he drew out an old-fashioned leather pocket-book.
No one was anxious to examine the contents just then; they were all in a hurry to get back to camp and quench their thirst, and away from the scene of their late adventure. No apparent change had taken place in the surroundings of their camp, and they made a fire and sat down to rest and eat.
"Poor old Columbus!" said Morton. "I cannot help feeling sorry for the old ruffian. He was a real plucky fellow. Do you remember how coolly he walked in to us the morning we got here?"
"Yes, and after all we had no business—according to their ideas—to interfere with their little rites and ceremonies. They treated us in a friendly fashion."
"After all, however, things turned up trumps for us. We would not have had the ghost of a show in a fight amongst these boulders. No, we must thank that earth-tremor for being alive now."
After their meal was over and the four somewhat rested, Morton proposed a stroll to the crater to see how it had fared, for not a single report had been heard since the one accompanying the eruption of mud.
A wondrous change had taken place, they found. The crater, or what they had taken for one, had subsided, and over its site now flowed an unbroken sheet of water. The mud on the boulders and the turbid condition of the water were the only signs of the late convulsion of nature.
"And so," said Brown, "the burning mountain, such as it was, is gone for good, and we are the only white men living who have seen it, who will now ever see it."
"That's so," commenced Morton, when he was interrupted by a footstep from behind. They all turned hastily.
Scarred, bleeding, and burnt, a most miserable object, there stood Columbus, the only survivor of his tribe. He looked abjectly and imploringly at the whites—apparently it was to their power he attributed the disaster that had happened,—and came forward with a crushed and broken air, gazing woefully at the space where the crater had been.
Brown beckoned, and the blackfellow came up to them.
Just then Charlie and Billy called out loudly that the water was sinking. It was true: the muddy water was rapidly falling, and a whirlpool was forming in the middle, as though some cavity in the earth had been opened by the late convulsion. Silently they all watched the water as it swirled round quicker and quicker, and a harsh scream went up from it. In less than half an hour the hole was empty, save for a misty vapour that arose. This cleared away, and the bottom of the hole lay bare—a chaotic jumble of boulders coated with mud, and in the centre a dark rift, as though the crater formation had sunk down bodily.
"Anyone feel inclined to go down there?" said Morton.
"Not just at present," replied Brown; "we'll let it cool off a bit first."
The disappearance of the water seemed to put the final blow on the shattered Columbus. He followed them readily to the camping-ground, where they gave him some food, which he ate ravenously, although it made the whites shudder to see him, when they remembered what his last meal had been.
In spite of what they had gone through, they were all too anxious to get out of the gloomy desert of barren rocks to defer their departure, and at sundown they started back for the lagoons. The ex-chief accompanied them, as they thought they could make him useful in furthering their future discoveries.
They arrived at their camp early the next day tired out, but right glad to get back to more cheerful surroundings. Their horses were feeding quietly about the place, having enjoyed a better time of it than their masters, and everything else was just as they had left it. They endeavoured to extract from Columbus the story of his escape, and after much misunderstanding managed to worry out, that when he found the white man dead he thought that the other white men had killed him, and rushed out after them. As soon as he got outside he was struck down and knew no more, excepting that all the others must have been buried under the fall of rock.
"How about those fellows who were sent back after the corpse?" suddenly said Morton.
Further questioning elicited from Columbus that six men had gone back, and by the signs he used it was evident that they had not yet returned.
"By Jove, I never thought of them!" said Brown. "Lucky they did not come along and spear our horses while we were away."