"BEYOND THE ILLUMINATION OF HIS TORCH HE SAW TWO GLEAMING EYES."
Bromley's torch now reappeared in the distance. Coleman was too terrified to call, but instead moved on in silence, occasionally flaring his torch behind him, and always seeing the gleaming eyes when he looked back. Try as he would, he could get no farther from them. There were occasional stumbling-blocks in the way, and once or twice he encountered rocks which he was obliged to pass around. Whenever Coleman turned and waved the torch, the animal whined as if he too were in fear.
Terrified as Lieutenant Coleman was, he could not help noticing that the brown colonies of bats now appeared more frequently on the stone ceiling, and presently the air grew perceptibly fresher as he advanced. He began to realize the presence of a gray light apart from that of his torch; and finally coming sharply around a projecting rock, he saw the welcome light of day streaming in through a wide opening in the rocks, and at one side, thrust into a crevice, George's torch was flaring and smoking in the wind. Coleman placed his torch with the other, hoping that the lights would continue to protect them from the animal and then he sprang out of the cavern into the sweet open air, with that joyous feeling of relief which can be understood only by one who has passed through a similar experience.
George was standing in the dry grass, with a great stone in each hand, as if he already knew their danger and was prepared; but when Coleman told him in hurried words what they had to expect, he dropped the stones, and they began to look about for a place of safety. It was not far to a high rock upon which they both scrambled, and then Bromley let himself down again, and passed up a number of angular stones for ammunition. Whatever the mysterious beast might be, they could keep him off from the rock for a time, but they were not prepared for a siege. They had little to say to each other, and that in whispers as they strained their eyes to look into the entrance to the cavern. Bromley, however, was softly humming a tune, and just as Coleman looked up at him in astonishment he dropped the stones from his hands and burst into laughter; and sure enough, there in the mouth of the cavern stood their tame bear, Tumbler, wagging his head from side to side just as Coleman had seen the mysterious eyes move in the darkness, and, moreover, he was still licking his chops after the feast he had made on the bats.
Lieutenant Coleman had been so alarmed at first, and then so gratified at the happy outcome of his adventure, that he had not noticed the character of the stones which Bromley had been handling. It was not until his attention was called to a flake of mica that he looked about him on the ground, to see every where blocks and flakes of what is commonly called isinglass. They could have something better than wooden shutters for their windows now.
By a certain gnarled chestnut which overhung the cliff above them, growing out of the hill near the spring, they estimated the length of the subterraneous passage to be not less than a quarter of a mile. The sun, which had broken through the clouds, indicated by the angle of his rays that the afternoon was well past. They now thought it advisable to retrace their steps through the unsavory cavern. In view of the stifling passage, Coleman inhaled deep drafts of the sweet outer air, and shuddered involuntarily at the necessity of repeating the experience, even when he knew the animal now following him was only stupid old Tumbler. George handed him a piece of the mica to carry, and his careless, happy mood indicated that he returned to the subterraneous passage as gaily as if it were a pleasant walk overland. As they drew near the entrance to the cavern, with the bear shambling at their heels, an indefinable dread of trouble ahead took possession of Coleman. It might have been the absence of the resinous smell of the torches. At all events, they were presently standing in the gruesome half-light before the empty crevice, through which they could see their pine-knots still burning fifty feet below in an inner cavern. As their torches had burned to the edge of the rock they had fallen through the opening. They were without fire, and if they should succeed in striking it with their flints, they had no means of carrying it a hundred yards into the darkness. The situation was frightful. Outside, the perpendicular cliff rose a matter of sixty feet to the overhanging trees of the plateau, and close to the south ledge, which towered above it. The two men and the bear were prisoners on this barren shelf of rocks, with a quarter of a mile of subterraneous darkness separating them from food and shelter—from life itself. Was it their destiny, Coleman thought, to die of starvation among these inhospitable rocks, hung like a speck between the plateau and the valley, watched by the circling eagles and by the patient buzzards, who would perch on the nearer tree-tops to await their dissolution? The very thought of the situation unmanned him.
EXPLORING THE CAVE OF THE BATS.