Cast on a Strange Shore.
Being nervous or wanting in nerve is a state that would soon prove the ruin of the adventurous.
We had to set ourselves determinedly to the task of finding our way back, and after a weary climb Tom pointed it out.
If anything, the descent was more laborious than the climbing up; but at last, tired out, we reached the vaulted chamber with its troubled lake and narrow sandy strip of shore—a welcome place, gloomy and horrible as it was, for it meant rest upon our raft, and the gliding out with the stream to the entrance arch, and then not so very long a journey to the blessed light of heaven.
“Ah!”
That cry burst from our lips simultaneously, as, climbing down to reach the sand, we held our lights low to see—what?
That there must be a sort of tide in the lake, small as it was; for the water was bubbling up more fiercely with a hissing noise, and there was no sand—the waters had covered it; there was no raft—the pole had been loosened by the water and the raft had gone, floated away, to be driven by the stream to the tunnel, and then swim lightly away to leave us to a horrible death—a self-sought death; and as I thought of what I had done in my insensate greed for gold I could have groaned aloud.
But no, it was no insensate greed, I told myself—it was for Lilla’s sake—and my eyes rilled with tears as I thought that I should never see her more, and that Garcia—
That name sent a thrill of energy through my weary frame, and calling upon speechless Tom, I told him to light a piece more oakum; and he did so, to reveal plainly the raft floating about right at the end of the great vault, and apparently nearing the arch of exit. What were we to do?
There was but one answer. Dash into that horrible black lake and swim to the raft, or else stay and die.