“Shall I go, too?” she asked.
Margaret shook her head. She turned to scan the lake.
“No,” she said; “you couldn’t help—and it may be bad climbing. But I’m used to that. You keep watch for Jake and the launch. He may be needed later on.” With that as the last word, she let herself down into the chimney of the rocks. May from above gazed with wide eyes until the form of her friend disappeared into the blackness below. Then, she turned to look out over the lake, in anxious search for the coming of the launch. Standing alone there, with the dreadful mystery hidden within the earth under her feet, she felt a quick reaction of doubt, which welled swiftly to the torture of despair. The strength flowed from her. She sank to her knees, and stared down into the dark of the chasm with dull, unseeing eyes—rested motionless in the apathy of supreme misery.
CHAPTER XXVI
IN THE DARK
MARGARET, as she let herself down into the chimney, held the torch so as to show her surroundings. She still clung to the rock above with her right hand, while the left was occupied by the torch. As yet, she had found no footing. The light revealed that this opening through the ridge was the result of the lodging of one huge block of stone, which had left the angle between it and the other rock empty. A clutter of fragments formed the third side of a triangle, which extended downward steeply as far as she could see. A feeling of sick apprehension swept over her when she perceived the manner in which some of the stones hung, seemingly poised to a fall. Then, in the next instant, she recalled the reason of her presence there, and conquered dread in the need of action.
She saw a jutting bit of rock a few inches below her feet. She let herself down to the extreme limit of reach, and found herself just able to touch the support with a toe. She released her hand-hold, and thus remained, half-standing, half-lying in the hole. She searched out other points to which her fingers might cling, at the height of her breast. Clenching these, she bent her knees, and finally came to a crouching posture on the tiny ledge that had been under her feet. In the like tedious, slow fashion, she continued the descent, for a distance of perhaps twenty feet, without mishap, though in constant danger of a fall. But, at this point, new difficulties threatened. Though she took long to search, she could find nothing to afford a foothold, even the tiniest. To make the matter worse, just here the smoothness of the walls was such that her hands could secure only a doubtful grip. She studied the situation painstakingly by means of the torch, making sure that nowhere a projection of the stone escaped her observation. She was distraught by this ill fortune, which threatened the ruin of her hopes. Finally, however, she perceived by the light of the torch that, two yards or more below the point to which her feet reached, the chimney bent a little, toward the horizontal. At the sight, Margaret’s courage sprang to new life. Without a second of delay in which fear might grow, she loosed her hold, and let herself slip downward.
The steepness of the chimney was so great that her movement was rather a fall than a slide. In the very second of the start, she felt the violent impact of her feet against the stone as they struck the bend. Nor was the change of direction sufficient to overcome the impetus of the drop, as she had hoped. Her body shot onward down the rough slope. She caught at the walls with her fingers, but, though the ragged surface tore the skin from her flesh, she could get no clutch strong enough to stay the flight. The torch had slipped from her grasp without her even being aware of its loss at the time. In the darkness, she went hurtling on. Her spirit broke in those seconds of dreadfulness. She felt that death waited at the end of the fall. Saxe’s name was on her lips when she crashed into pause.
For a long time she lay without any movement, her sole consciousness a dazed suffering from bruised flesh and aching bones. Her senses all but failed, yet did not quite. A vague, incoherent necessity beat upon her brain, though she could by no means understand what that need might be. Her one clear realization was of pain—pain pervasive, deadly. But, little by little, the torment of racked nerves lessened. It seemed to her ages after that hideous drop through the black when, at last, her mind grew active again. On the instant, she was a creature transformed. She contrived with infinite pains to sit erect, alert to know the truth as to her own condition—for she still had work to do. To her relief, she found that, despite the complaining of her beaten body, she had been spared broken bones or other hurt that might disable. There was misery in each movement, but she could move, and with that she was content, grateful to providence that her plight was no worse. She looked back, and saw, a long way off, a feeble, pallid light, which came, she made certain, from the foot of the shaft at the bend. Now, from its remoteness, she was able to make some estimate of the distance through which she had sped beyond it, and she was fain to wonder that she should be indeed alive.