CHAPTER XXVIII.—THE HUNGER HOLE.
Ethel, on following her young pupil through the darkling portal of the cave, moved forward at first with extreme precaution; but gradually, as her eyes became accustomed to the dim mysterious light that reigned within, she could distinguish that the grotto really did increase in height within two paces of the entrance, and that it was quite possible to stand upright without inconvenience beneath the rocky roof. She saw that she was in a natural cavern of small dimensions, the irregular level of the floor being moistened by the water that oozed through a crevice between two mossy stones and trickled onwards until it fell, with a monotonous dripping sound, into a chasm some ten or eleven feet in breadth, over which a wooden bridge, the timbers of which were black with age and coated with colourless growths of fungi and mosses, afforded the means of passing.
‘They say the Hunger Hole was known and used from very early times,’ observed Lady Alice, stepping fearlessly upon the dilapidated bridge, of which the hand-rails, if such there had been, had long since rotted away. ‘But its very existence was kept secret by the Morfords of Morford and two or three other families of the neighbouring gentry and their trusty retainers, until after that sad tragedy of which I told you. You will find the inner chamber more comfortable than the outer cave, where the spring is.’
And indeed Ethel found herself in a recess, somewhat smaller than the exterior portion of the cavern, but dry, and free alike from trickling moisture and the unwholesome growth of cryptogams, that carpeted the slimy floor of the antechamber through which they had passed. At one extremity of the chamber a sort of bench or bed-place had been cut, evidently by human agency, in the stony wall. Light came filtered down through boughs and creeping-plants from above the chasm, where a glimpse of the sky might be caught; while beneath, some subterranean pool or streamlet, to judge by the drip, drip, of the water that ran over the mossy lip of the fissure, certainly existed.
‘Life must have been very dreary here, spent in solitude, and with the haunting apprehension that at each instant the secret of the hiding-hole might be betrayed or discovered,’ said Ethel, again shivering, as though the air of the cave had been icy cold. ‘It would be almost better to face any danger than to linger’——
A sudden creaking and cracking, as of breaking wood-work, interrupted Ethel’s speech, and was instantly followed by a dull heavy plunge, and then a splashing sound, as though something weighty had fallen from a considerable height into water below.
‘Good heavens, the bridge—the bridge!’ Such were the words that rose simultaneously to the lips of both the girls, and by a common impulse pupil and governess hurried to the verge of the abyss. Their instinct of alarm had been but too accurate in divining what had occurred. The bridge—the rotten old timbers of which had for centuries been exposed to the corroding influence of time and decay—had disappeared into the depths below, and now an impassable chasm yawned between the young explorers of the cave and the doorway by which they had entered it. They fell back and looked at one another with white scared faces.
Ethel was the first to recover her self-command. ‘This is awkward,’ she said, trying to smile, ‘for we shall be late in reaching High Tor, and I am afraid the Countess will be anxious. Of course, as soon as it is known that we have not returned to the farm where the carriage and pony were left, search will be made.’
‘No one will think of looking here,’ returned young Lady Alice, with a disconsolate shake of the head. ‘We are fully two miles from the Stannaries, and everybody will suppose that we have returned thence by the footpath that crosses Bramberry Common, or the bridle-road that skirts Otter Pool and the Red Rock—short-cuts both of them, and favourite paths of mine, as is known. I am, unluckily, a wilful child, and have a sad character for roving over hill and dale, so that even Mamma will not be frightened at the first. And—and, another thing that is bad. Nobody will suspect us of crossing Bitternley Swamp, even in fine weather, without a gentleman or a man of some sort, to take care of us in case of need. The truth is, Miss Gray, it was a silly thing to do, a fool-hardy trick to play even on a day like this; for lives have been lost there often, as all on the moor know. We got across dry-footed or nearly so; but it might have been different. My brother said once, I was as bad to follow as a Will-o’-the-Wisp could be.’ The girl laughed, as though to reanimate her own drooping spirits, but the sullen echoes of the cave gave back the laughter hollowly.
‘Can we not make some signal—call aloud perhaps, to notify our plight to any who may be passing near?’ asked Ethel, after a moment’s consideration. But even as she spoke she felt the futility of the expedient she had suggested.
‘Nobody may pass this way for weeks to come,’ said Lady Alice despondently. ‘You don’t know, you can’t guess how very desolate Dartmoor is at most times. We might scream ourselves hoarse, without getting an answer from any voice but that of the peewit by day and the fern-owl by night. No; I was thinking I could perhaps get across.’
But a deliberate survey of the chasm proved the hopelessness of such an attempt. A trained gymnast with nerves exceptionally steady could readily have taken the leap, although to slip or stumble was to incur a certain and miserable death in the unseen waters below. But even the hardy maidens who tend their brass-belled kine among the Alpine pastures of Tyrol would have flinched from the effort to spring from one side of that yawning gulf to the other. Then for a time, a long time, there was silence, unbroken save by the regular plash and tinkle of the water, as it trickled over the floor of the outer cave and fell over into the black abyss below.
‘They must surely take the alarm at High Tor,’ said Ethel after a space. ‘There will be a hue-and-cry through all the neighbourhood. The worst that can happen will be that we may spend the night here, and be very cold and very hungry.’
‘Hungry! Yes, we are likely to be that, before we are found,’ half-petulantly interrupted Lady Alice. And then there was no more said for a longer time than before.
Ethel’s mind was busy as she sat side by side with her pupil on the rough-hewn bench of stone that had been the death-bed of the luckless Jacobite refugee. How little had she thought, when listening an hour or two ago, to the legend of John Grahame’s death, that she who told and she who hearkened to the tale would soon be shut up in that dismal lair, to suffer hardship, perhaps even to—— No, not to die, so near to home and friends; that was a supposition too wild to be harboured! They must be sought out, found, delivered from the prison to which accident had consigned them. Some one would pass. Some one might even then be within hearing, and be rambling on all-unconscious of the predicament of those within. So strongly did the idea that friendly ears might be near present itself to Ethel, that she started to her feet, calling aloud again and again for help. The hollow echoes of the cave returned the sound, as though in mockery, while Lady Alice sat mute and listless on the rocky bench. Presently she too sprang up. ‘I cannot bear it,’ cried the young girl, in her quick impetuous way. ‘I would sooner run the risk of fifty deaths than remain here, listening to the dreadful drip, drip, of the water as it falls into the pool or the brook beneath. We can’t, now the bridge is gone, cross the fissure. But perhaps, if you would help me, I might manage to scramble to the top of the rocks above here where the light comes down, and at any rate wave a handkerchief, or do something to attract attention if any one comes near.’
Ethel glanced up at the ragged rocks draped with weed and bramble, and then down at the gaping chasm, into which a false step would probably hurl any aspirant who should prove unequal to the attempt.
‘It is for me to try it, my dear, not you,’ she said quietly, but with a resolution that was not to be shaken. ‘I am taller and stronger; and besides, how could I meet the Countess again if I allowed you to run into a danger I shrank from?’ And without further prelude Ethel grasped a tough tendril of the ivy that hung within reach, and by clinging to every crevice or angle of the rock that could yield support to foot or hand, succeeded in gaining a ledge of stone, above which a tall slender hazel shot up into the free air. But to climb the few feet of bare stone above her was impossible. ‘It is idle; I cannot do it,’ she said sadly.
It did indeed begin to seem a hopeless case, that is supposing that young Lady Alice was correct in her estimate of the loneliness of the spot and of the unlikelihood of succour.
‘I cannot reach the top; the rock is as steep as a wall,’ said Ethel, again looking down from amidst the ferns and foxgloves, the ivy trails and ropes of bramble, that half-filled the aperture.
‘That tall nut-tree, it is close to your hand,’ cried the quick-witted young damsel below. ‘Could you not pull it towards you, tie your handkerchief to the topmost bough, and let it spring up again? That would give us a chance, should any one come near.’
With some difficulty Ethel succeeded in grasping the tough stem of the tall hazel, and bending it until she was able to make fast her handkerchief, as Alice had suggested, to the uppermost twigs. Up sprang the slender stem again the instant it was released, and the white pennon fluttered out, clear of the rocks, in the moorland breeze.
‘We have hoisted our flag,’ said Lady Alice blithely, ‘to let them know we are at home.’ But as hour after hour went by, and the longed-for help came not, and the increasing gloom of the faint cool light that filled the grotto told of the waning of the day, the spirits of Ethel’s young charge lost their buoyancy.
‘I wish at least,’ she said peevishly, ‘that tiresome dripping of the water would but stop. I feel as though it would drive me mad. Why not try the jump back over the chasm? Even if one fell in, it would be better so than to die by inches.’
Ethel did her best to impart comfort. But her pupil would not be comforted.
‘No, no!’ she said repeatedly; ‘they will not find us till—till it is too late. The last place where any one would dream of looking is the Hunger Hole. It is so far off that nobody will imagine we walked all the way; and then, as none know of the broken bridge, it will never occur to any one that we are shut up here. They will believe us to be drowned. It is not difficult to get smothered in a swamp hereabouts. And the pools will be dragged and the rivers examined, and still the riddle will remain unsolved.’
Presently the girl crept up to Ethel’s side and stole her hand into that of her governess. ‘I want you to forgive me, Miss Gray—Ethel dear,’ she said in a low voice. ‘It is my wilfulness that has been the cause of all.’
Ethel answered her soothingly; and with a great sob young Lady Alice, who was no coward, kept down her rising tears. For an hour or more they sat silent, hand in hand.
‘Do you remember,’ whispered Alice De Vere, after a time, ‘an old, old song, The Mistletoe Bough? Maud sings it. I am afraid it will come true for us, and the Hunger Hole will have a new story.’