“He’s just knocked out for a minute or two, that’s all,” said Pilescu, comfortingly. But really, the big Baronian was as frightened now as little Paul. They were all in a terrible plight. At any moment more of the roof might fall in and the cave would be completely flooded with water. They could not help themselves to escape because they were so tightly bound.
“Ranni! Open your eyes!” begged Paul. One of the robbers had left a torch shining on a ledge nearby, and its light shone on to Ranni’s face as he lay with his eyes shut, half-leaning against the rocky wall. “Pilescu! How did you get caught like this?”
“We went up into the cave below the temple,” said Pilescu. “We found the statue was divided into half, and we climbed up. We could not see a robber anywhere. We went to the mouth of the cave and looked out. We could see nothing at all, because there is a thick mist on the mountain-side this morning. We went back into the cave to return to you, when into the cave rushed all the robbers and flung themselves on us. They must have seen us standing at the entrance. They were waiting for us there! We could not see them in the mist.
“Oh, Pilescu — just as we had got to the end of our journey!” cried Prince Paul. “What are we going to do now? Is Ranni badly hurt? He hit his head so hard on the rock!”
Ranni opened his eyes at that moment and groaned. His head ached badly. He tried to sit upright, and then remembered everything with a rush.
“More of the roof is falling!” cried Jack. He was right. With another tremendous roar a great mass of rock again fell down at the other end of the cave, and a still greater volume of water poured out. It was now all round their legs. The five captives struggled to get up on ledges out of the way of it.
“It is rising higher now,” said Mike, watching the water swirling in the cave. The bright light of the torch glittered on the blackness of the icy-cold water. It looked very threatening.
“Pilescu, what are we going to do?” said Jack, desperately. “We shall all be drowned soon if we don’t do something! Oh, why didn’t someone come after us — some of the servants, or villagers. Beowald said he would fetch some!”
Beowald, of course, had fetched the villagers, and they had gone down as far as the cave of the waterfall. But they had not been able to guess that the way the boys had gone was along the narrow, rocky ledge beside the rushing river. They had left the cave and gone back to the mountain-side, telling Beowald that he must be mistaken. No one had gone down into those caves below! The robbers and their prisoners must be somewhere on the mountain-side!
They had searched the mountains well, hallooing and shouting for hours. When the thick mist had come up, they had had to leave their search, for, good mountaineers as they were, they could lose themselves in the mist as easily as any child.