Volume Three—Chapter Three.
The Horror in the Zorn.
“Yes! What is it? Aunt Marguerite ill?” Harry Vine started up, listening. “Did any one call?”
There was no reply, and he sat there listening, still with the impression strong upon him that he had heard some one knock at his bedroom door and call him by name.
Then a curious sense of confusion came over him as he tried to make out what it meant. His head was hot, but his hands were cold, and he felt that he ought to know something which constantly eluded his mental grasp.
Land—rock—water running, gurgling, and splashing, and utter darkness. Where was he? What did it all mean?
For a long time the past was a blank. Then, as he sat with his hands pressed to his head, staring wildly before him, it all came back like a flash—his trouble, the escape, the long swim, and his taking refuge in this cave.
Then he must have slept all day, and it was now night, or else the tide had risen above the mouth of the entrance, and the water was slowly rising to strangle him, and, Heaven have mercy upon him, there was no escape!
He began to creep down slowly toward the water, determined to swim with the next retiring wave, and try to reach the shore. Even if he drowned in the effort it would be better than sitting there in that horrible cave, waiting for a certain death.
But he found that comparatively he had to descend some distance before he could feel the water, and as he touched it with his extended hand, he fancied that he could detect a gleam of light.