Slowly and with the utmost caution he crept backwards from the horrible pit. But his supply of matches was scanty, and often he bumped his head against the ceiling, and often he tripped and fell, till before long there was not a part of his portly person that was free from pain. Yet still he struggled on, for he realised that his life depended on his extricating himself from the terrible labyrinth in which he was entangled. He struck match after match, till his stock was expended, and then, panting, weary, and sore, he clenched his teeth and battled onward. It seemed miles to the end of the passage. He imagined that he had got into some new tunnel, the opening of which he had passed unwittingly when he crept into the trap; and to the natural dread of his situation was added the horrible fear that he was lost in the bowels of the earth.
And then, when his strength and nerve had all but given out, came deliverance. Before him he saw a faint glimmer of light, which grew brighter and brighter as he pressed painfully forward, and ere he knew that he was safe he found himself in the gallery behind the organ loft.
But what was the brilliant light that filled the nave of the Cathedral? What was the sound he heard? It was the sound of men’s voices.
Sitting round a fire, whose red flames illumined the white walls of the grotto, were four men, who talked loudly as they dried their wet garments before the blaze.
Tresco crept to the trellis-work of the gallery, and peered down upon the scene. In the shifting light which the unsteady flames threw across the great cave below he could hardly distinguish one man from another, except where facing the ruddy light the features of this intruder or of that reflected the fierce glow.
“I had to chiv the fat bloke, an’ he squealed like a pig when I jabbed ’im.” The speaker was sitting cross-legged with his back towards Tresco, and was wiping the blade of a big butcher’s knife.
“My man died coughing,” said another. “’E coughed as ’e sat like a trussed fowl, an’ when I ‘squeezed’ ’im, ’e just give one larst little cough an’ pegged out quite pleasant, like droppin’ orf to sleep.”
“It’s been a bloody mess,” remarked a third speaker. “There’s Garstang there, a mass of blood all over his shirt, and there’s the two men that was shot; any’ow you like to look at it, it’s an unworkmanlike job. All four of ’em should ha’ been ‘squeezed’—bullets make reports and blood’s messy.”
“Garn! Whatyer givin’ us, Dolly?” said the youngest member of the gang. “Didn’t you shoot your own man—an’ on the track, too? I don’t see what you’ve got to growl at. We’ve got the gold—what more do you want?”
“I shot the unfortunate man, your Honour, firstly because he was a constable, and secondly because he was givin’ trouble, your Honour. But I prefer to do these things professionally.” Dolphin’s mock seriousness tickled his hearers, and they laughed. “But, joking apart,” he said, “after all the experience we’ve had, to go and turn that mountain-side into a butcher’s shambles is nothin’ short of disgraceful. They all ought to’ve been ‘squeezed,’ an’ have died as quiet as mice, without a drop of blood on ’em.”