Our sleep was broken and disturbed by the noise of drums in the temple, and again and again we woke with a start, and thought that some one had come to call us out to be offered up before the hideous idols, and as often found that our alarm was only caused by a dream.
By the middle of the night the noise outside ceased, and we both being thoroughly wearied out, slept soundly. All at once I was awaked by feeling cold, wet hands on my throat and mouth, and struggled to free myself and shout out; while Bill, roused by my struggles, grunted out, “What’s up?”
A voice said, “No make bobbery. Be plenty quiet. Me be Calla come make good for you.”
Evidently some one was watching, for we heard people outside speaking, and the noise of the gate being unbarred. While this was doing, Calla stole noiselessly away; and when one of the priests of the temple came in, bearing a great, flaming torch of palm leaves, and searched about the cave, he could only find me and Bill; so, giving us a couple of kicks apiece, he went back and fastened the gate again, evidently displeased at being disturbed.
As soon as he had gone and all was again quiet, Bill and I whispered together, wondering where Calla had come from, and where he had gone.
“I have it,” I said, almost forgetting the necessity for speaking low, but remembering myself in time. “Calla was wet; he must have come by the water.”
“How could he?” answered Bill. “There’s no passage there.”
“Never mind,” I said; “that’s where he came from. Let’s get down there, and see what we can.”
To get to the pool in the dark was easier said than done; but at last we found our way to the part of the cave where it was, which was dimly lighted by the hole in the side through which we had seen Bristol Bob’s island, and we groped about to try to find some way by which Calla could have got in.
Whilst we were thus engaged, we heard a long-drawn breath, and then a rippling in the pool, and then we distinguished a dark form coming to its shore.