Cynthia was very sad and downhearted after this incident.
"Poor Uncle may be treated in just the way that those negroes treated that black man," said she. Her eyes filled with tears.
I tried to comfort her with the assurance that the Skipper must be far from that spot and in safe keeping. That perhaps he had walked to Cap Haïtien; but she did not smile, and I heard her in the recesses of our silent rock sobbing far into the night.
I have said little of the wonderful vines that grow everywhere in this magic land. Like those that grew downward from the centre of our first cave, they trailed long and strong from the rock overhead, reaching almost to the broad, flat surface which now made our floor. They grew downward also from our plateau toward the ground. At the place where they ended others started, I suppose, and I know that the growth was such that they overlapped, and that one standing below could not imagine the nature of the place where we had found refuge. The green of the mountain seemed to have no break. Such was the assurance that Zalee had given Lacelle.
The third evening after Zalee's departure closed in sadly for all of us. It was difficult to be cheerful in our desolate situation, and my night dreams brought to me many a fearful thought and vision. There were distant mutterings of thunder, and again that same rumbling sound that we had heard the day before the hurricane had overcome us.
"Le bruit du gouffre!" said Lacelle again, over and over, as she looked anxiously toward the eastward, where the thick clouds were gathering. Before I lay down to sleep I heard Cynthia calling to me. I went under the arch and stepped across the rift in the rock, which by only a few inches separated her from me. But even this was too much. Somehow I was uneasy and nervous, and I met Cynthia with the words:
"I wish that you would come down to the terrace to sleep. Somehow I don't like to have you so far away."
Cynthia's face flushed as she said: "I only wanted some water. I can't see why we are not as well off here as down on the terrace; certainly, as no one can come through the passage, we are all of us safe. But should any one find out our secret, they might take you off without discovering us at all."
"I wonder how you would live then?" said I.
"I wonder, too," said Cynthia, casting down her eyes. I pondered over this, and asked myself whether I could take courage and whether her tone meant more for me than the words implied.