“Yes; but there was some one to pull Bob Hampton out,” I said angrily; and in this spirit I made a fierce effort after reaching up with one leg and one arm, and somehow managed to drag myself higher, so that I did not feel so much oppression at my chest. Another inch or two made me wonder why I had been so much alarmed, and in another minute I had passed the great crate, and found more room between the cargo and the beams overhead.
But I hesitated to go farther in that horrible darkness, dreading some fresh complication, and feeling that now I had reached a part where I could hear, it would be wise to go back and accept my fate of a prisoner, and see what Jarette would do, when all at once the tapping, which had been unheard for some time, recommenced, and apparently so close, that my cowardly dread passed off, and I determined to go on.
“All right now, aren’t you, sir?” whispered Barney.
“Yes.”
“Told you so. Only be careful, sir, I can’t help you now.”
I felt about a little, and then crawled forward in no narrow perpendicular crevice, but flat on my chest, between the cargo and the deck, and in less than a minute my hand touched an upright piece? of roughly-sawn wood. Then another and another, and passing my hand between them I felt board, while the next instant there was a dull jar as if some one on the other side struck the board I touched, and gave three taps. I answered directly with my knuckles, and a strange feeling of emotion made my heart palpitate as a voice came through the narrow opening between the boards.
“Is any one there?”
I placed my mouth as close to the crevice as I could in my constrained position, and chancing being heard, I cried—
“Yes.”
“Who is it?” came back.