Yet one does not welcome death, however full of torture may be the alternative; and when the noise made by the army of laborers grew more distinct, telling that they were approaching nearer to his narrow prison each moment, the thought of the struggle which must ensue was very painful. With twenty cartridges he would hardly be able to hold the first squad of laborers in check sixty seconds. Then, unarmed, he must meet those whom he had so unwittingly deceived.
As the moments passed he was able to form a definite idea of the approach of his enemies, for in such a light must he now consider his former subjects. Already could he see tiny rays of light through the crevices of the rocks and timbers, and the shower of dust which fell upon him told that but a few feet of the debris remained between him and the open air.
Now he clutched his musket more firmly and stood on the alert, prepared to spring forward at the instant the aperture was sufficiently large to admit of the passage of his body, although he knew that the ruins were surrounded by an army so great that it would be impossible to make his way twenty feet before receiving a death-wound.
It was at this moment, when he had nerved himself for the struggle he believed was about to ensue, that he felt, rather than heard, a noise directly beneath his feet, and even while wondering as to the cause of it an upheaval of the floor told that the enemy were searching for him both above and below.
Then one of the boards upon which he stood was pushed aside, almost overturning him, and he leveled his musket, ready to fire when they should spring upon him out of what was evidently a tunnel.
The fragments from above had been so far removed by this time that the darkness was partially dispersed, allowing him to see everything in the vicinity quite distinctly.
An ape’s head presented itself from this unexpected aperture, and, in order to save his ammunition as far as possible, Philip raised his musket to strike. Another instant and there would have been one ape the less on the island—an event well calculated to plunge the prisoner into an agony of grief.
It was the chimpanzee, Ben Bolt, and not one of Goliah’s adherents, who had thus come from the very earth, as it were; and an instant later the besieged youth was shaking the animal by the paw as if he were a human being, for there could be no question but that the two chimpanzees had formed some plan to extricate their old master from his perilous position.
There was no time to be wasted in ceremonies, however. The laborers above had so nearly reached the tiny place of refuge that fragments of stone were already falling between the timbers, and the chimpanzee realized quite as well as did Philip that to make this means of escape practicable they must beat an immediate retreat.