Yet the ardour of the pursuit had taken possession of Bob; with a mighty effort he managed to quicken his pace so that he actually drew up considerably on the fleet-footed pair—scarce fifty yards divided them. "Another spurt and I've got them," thought Bob, and he clenched his teeth and strove boldly in the attempt. Now thirty yards only separated them, now twenty, now ten. Bob chuckled grimly to himself at the prospect of after all being successful in the chase, and stretched out his hand, then in an instant the hitherto level course came to an abrupt stop, a layer of branches and spinifex grass spread right across the track. The blacks had cleared it at a leap, but before Bob had time to prepare for a spring he had staggered into the midst of the cut brushwood, and at once felt himself sinking down into space. It all occurred in a second or so. He clutched wildly at the pigmy branches as he descended through them, but they broke in his hands, and with a rush and a plunge he fell downwards into an unknown depth.
When he recovered himself, about a minute later, he became aware that he was standing, considerably shaken and bruised, waist deep in some semi-solid fluid at the bottom of a natural shaft, which he mentally calculated to be at least twenty feet deep. He had found water for a surety, and now would have given much to get out of its slimy embrace, but the steep dioritic walls were quite unscalable. Bob was hopelessly a prisoner. Then did he blame himself most bitterly for his mistaken ardour and lack of perception. The wily natives had but pretended to be overcome at the last wild rush so as to lead him directly over the subterranean trap.
"Mackay was certainly right," he muttered. "Their cunning is nothing short of devilish; and after being told of that, here I go like a fool and prove it for myself."
He had little time, however, for unprofitable moralizings, and he peered up and around his strange prison-house with anxious eyes, yet his surroundings were of so murky a nature that he could only vaguely guess the description of the trap into which he had fallen. His gaze was instinctively directed toward the gaping hole in the brushwood through which he had fallen, though what he expected to see there he did not very well know. But he now realized the nature of the blacks too fully to believe for a moment that they intended to leave him to his fate without further molestation.
"Why, the water is bad enough as it is," he said, with a forced attempt at pleasantry. "They'll certainly come to fish me out before long."
He had not been in his awkward predicament many minutes when a black grinning face stared down at him. Bob shuddered and crouched closer to the damp rocks; he was half prepared for a stone to be thrown or a spear to be poked tantalizingly in his direction, but no such proceedings were taken. The demoniacally leering face continued to look down at him without movement for several seconds, when it was joined by another equally hideous; they belonged to the two savages who had led him such an unfortunate chase. They had now returned to view their victim after having probably given the alarm to their fellows. Bob groaned in dismay, but returned their gaze with stoical complacency, having not yet fully comprehended his true position.
At length, however, his strange gaolers, with many guttural exclamations, began to cover up the tell-tale gap in the layer of furze; then their prisoner's senses returned to him with a rush, and his emotions almost overwhelmed him. The blacks surely meant to cover up the hole so that his companions might not find him, and when they would depart after vain searchings, he would be left to the tender mercies of the "stupid" natives he had so commiserated! In truth Bob's cup of bitterness was filled to overflowing.
But he decided, nevertheless, to do his best to prevent the success of their scheme. His revolver was still dry, for he had by some odd instinct clung to it tenaciously despite his demoralizing downfall, and now he became aware for the first time that he held it in his hand. He fired two shots upwards in rapid succession. Operations ceased on the instant, and Bob felt comforted. He knew that Mackay would soon seek him out if any clue as to his whereabouts was left. His rejoicings, however, were premature, and very speedily checked. As he gazed at the sky through the gap which gave him light, he noticed the aperture slowly yet surely grow narrower and narrower. The blacks were pushing the superfluous brush over the opening by the aid of long sticks! Bob shouted with the full force of his lungs and discharged the remaining shots in his revolver upwards, but only a hoarse cackle of satisfaction from the natives answered his attempts at communication with the outside world, and soon—as the last glimpse of sky was shut out—he was enveloped in absolute darkness.
"Well, I assuredly could not have landed myself in a worse fix if I had tried," he soliloquized with wonderful calm. "Here I am, shut up in a twenty-feet water-hole in the middle of the Australian desert and surrounded by hostile savages. That's pretty good for a start—and, I'm afraid, for a finish too." He continued his unpleasant musings, while he carefully reloaded his revolver. Then he wondered what his companions would do when he failed to appear, and a ray of hope flashed across his sorely tried brain. Mackay and Emu Bill were expert bushmen, and indeed so was Never Never Dave. He had often heard them speak of tracking up clues of even the very flimsiest nature; might they not, after all, be able to follow the slight impressions left by his footsteps on the sandy gravel?... What a cruel irony of Fate to plunge him headlong into what he most desired to find—water. Had he been caught in a sand-hole he would not have felt so much aggrieved; but water, of all things! While thinking in this strain, he remembered that, though he had been extremely thirsty all day, he had not yet tasted of his find. But his thirst had effectually gone from him, and he abhorred the slimy touch of the fluid which encircled his limbs. Suddenly he felt some huge creature brush against his knee, and then climb up against him with many a wriggle and splutter. What new horror was this? Bob was anything but timid in temperament, yet he shivered at the sinuous contact of this unknown thing, and endeavoured frantically to shake it off, but it only clung the tighter.
Some little time now elapsed, to Bob it seemed like half an hour, for the moments dragged like ages, though five minutes would have been a nearer estimate. Then a subdued muttering was heard above, and he expected every instant to see more hideous faces grinning at him through the bushy covering. He guessed that the whole tribe had now arrived to witness his plight; and he was not far wrong, for nearly all the warriors whose powers of locomotion had not been interfered with earlier in the day had assembled overhead. The weary sojourner in the depths kept his gaze fixed on the roof of the shaft where one or two gleams of light filtered through the last unevenly laid scrub; his eyes had by this time grown accustomed to the gloom of his environment, and while he watched he carefully cocked his revolver, and adjusted it to fire on the hair trigger, so that his aim might not be disturbed at a critical juncture. Soon a gaunt black hand drew aside the branches; Bob's haste was his own undoing. Had he waited long enough the oily-skinned savage might have let in the light more fully, but as it was he fired, and a howl of pain told him he had not fired in vain; but the brushwood fell back into position, and his prison was left as dark as ever. He now made an effort to climb up the walls of the dank and evil-smelling pit in which he was immured; but the flinty formations exposed were dripping with moisture, and slippery, and offered no place for foothold. Bob would have given much then for a match, there were a few in the pockets of his nether garments, but they were well submerged beneath the level of the water, and consequently useless. The floundering animal that had climbed against his legs next aroused his curiosity; he could not imagine what sort of creature it might be, and his courage was not sufficient to prompt his making a practical investigation as to its form or temper with his hand, which, as it afterwards turned out, was just as well for the hand. Another lull ensued, and he began to be alarmed at the silence of his dusky gaolers. Were they premeditating some sudden and novel doom for himself, or had they indeed abandoned him to die in this horrible water-trap? And where were his companions all the time? To relieve the monotony he fired two more shots upwards at random and was rejoiced to hear another yell of pain from outside, but a retaliation in the shape of a fusillade of stones came crashing down, missing him by a few inches only. Again he fired, and again. Bob had grown desperate, he did not much care what form the reply of the natives would take, but now he heard an answering shot in the distance, while near at hand the Shadow's well-known voice hilloed out lustily. There now appeared to be considerable agitation among the blacks above; their feet pattered on the sand confusedly, and then a shrill yell intimated to Bob clearly enough that his tormentors had taken flight.