Cutlass and Cudgel

by George Manville Fenn

For there, straight before him, was a pale ray of light, and the place smelt cool and fresh.

Surely a star or the moon must be up, he thought, as he knelt down and resumed his task, feeling somehow a good deal rested.

The explanation was not long in coming, for to his astonishment the ray of light grew brighter and brighter, and broadened out full of dancing motes when he had been an hour at work, teaching him that he had not dropped off to sleep for a minute or two, but long enough to give him a good night’s rest sufficient to prepare him for the toil to come.

He felt vexed and called it laziness, working the harder to recover lost time, and as the hours glided by listening intently for the slightest sound from the quarry below that should indicate the coming of Ram with his daily portion of food.

On previous days he had looked forward to the lad’s approach as something that would break the monotony of his captivity, but now he would have given anything to have known that by some accident the lad would be kept away.

Still Archy toiled on, the stone he had attacked as tight as ever, but quite a little heap of rough mortar increasing beneath where he knelt.

“It’s only getting out the first one,” he argued; “the others will come easily enough.”

And so, full of hope, he kept on, till feeling that it must be near the time for the visit, he reluctantly closed his pocket-knife and went down, gazing back first at the tiny ray of light which pointed the way to liberty.

His arms ached and his fingers were sore. There was a blister too in the palm of his hand where the knife had pressed; but these were trifles now, and he seated himself in his old spot ready to receive his visitors, and so full of hope that he could hardly refrain from shouting for joy.

He could see it all, now. This was quite an ancient mine, one perhaps from which all the best stone had been worked. Where Ram came down was the land entrance, and the ray of light marked the opening in the face of the cliff, from which the pieces of stone had been lowered down into boats or ships below. After the smugglers had taken possession it seemed probable that they had filled up the hole in the cliff face, though it struck Archy that this would leave them a handy place to get their cargoes ashore if they had tackle to haul it up, and get it into their store at once.