Chapter XIX.
Within and Without the Demon’s Cave.
What had become of Henry?
The ball had struck him in a tender place; and not seriously hurt, but very much frightened, he fell headlong with a groan of—fear!
While the demon was carrying off Will he lay still and made use of his wits.
He reflected logically as follows: “Whatever Will loaded my pistols with, it certainly wasn’t a genuine bullet! So it would be useless for me to fire this pistol at the demon—useless—wicked—and against the laws!”
Gentle reader, mark that; read it carefully two or three times; muse on it; and remember that you yourself were once a boy—or, if not, your father was.
“Oh, how my side smarts! There’ll be a blister, surely!” Henry groaned. “Well, the best way to help Will will be to lie here perfectly still till the demon gets entirely out of sight, and then hop up and scramble away. Where shall I go? To the road? I must look for help somewhere, or Will may be killed! It won’t do to yell for help here, for no one except the demon could hear me. Yes, I must keep still a little while!”
As soon as the demon was well out of sight, Henry arose. But he found himself more bruised than he had thought.
“Now, to save Will—and myself,” he muttered. “What a capital idea,” he chuckled, as a happy thought struck him. “They think I’m dead, very likely, and so the demon won’t be on the watch for me! Of course; and if I can’t get help, I’ll swoop down on him and do the rescuing myself.”
As fast as he could he went back to the path, thinking to climb the hill and hurry to the road. A lingering fear that the demon might return and look for him lent speed to his feet, and he walked with long swift steps. In his generous heart he resolved to liberate Will at all hazards; and if he could devise no other means of doing so, he would return and “beard the lion in his den.”
When he reached the foot of the hill he chanced to look back, and saw a man standing by the tree. It was the demon, looking for him. To his intense relief, the man turned and went slowly back towards the cave.
“I am safe now,” he thought. “He won’t come to look for me again. But does he think I am dead, or carried off? Well, at any rate he will see me before long!”
Eagerly he turned to climb the hill, thinking meanwhile:—“Poor Will! No telling what that cruel demon may do with him! Oh, dear! we are both in a very bad scrape! O my pistols!—I must hurry!”
What with scrambling up hills and rushing down them, Henry’s limbs were already becoming stiff, and he found it hard work to climb. He succeeded, after making great and desperate struggles, in getting nearly to the top of the hill; when he took a false step, slipped, was thrown off his feet, and—in spite of all his efforts to save himself—slid headlong down to the very bottom. An avalanche of stones and dirt thundered down in his train.
A little mound of earth brought him to a standstill, and a cry of pain escaped his lips.
In spite of the pain he suffered, his first words were characteristic of him. “Well,” he said, grimly, “I’ve blotted out the demons path up that hill! His nice little path is now in ruins in this valley!”
But, with a groan of agony, he ejaculated: “Oh! my foot is broken all to pieces! Oh! O—o—h!”
For a little time it was difficult for him to keep from screaming with the pain.
As soon as he felt a little better, he took off his boot and stocking, and carefully examined the injured foot, muttering meanwhile between his groans: “Oh, I hope the demon didn’t hear that noise! How the stones rattled and thundered! If he heard, he will come rushing out to attack me, and I am not able to help myself a bit! Oh, what a catastrophe this is!”
Poor Henry! That time-honored accident, which, in romance, befalls all heroes of the chase, had befallen him. “He had sprained his ankle!”
Only, in this instance, no lovely huntress was to find him, and have him tenderly conveyed to her dwelling. No sporting companions were with him, hastily to construct a litter, and smuggle him into the castle of some incarcerated maiden, whom, making light of his suffering, he would release from her “turret prison;” and then, drawing the wicked jailer—her scheming, hunch-backed uncle—out of his concealment, he would fall upon him, and slay him, without mercy.
No; no love-marriage was fated to result from that adventure; Henry was to lie there all alone; and suffer.
It was sad, but our hero bore it patiently and philosophically. He believed that he should not be molested by the demon, and that was some consolation. But Will? Alas! All hope of rescuing him, so far as Henry was concerned, was at an end. That grieved him more than anything else.
Slowly the time wore away. As the demon did not come out again, Henry thought that the noise made by the falling stones had not been heard in the cave. He was full of anxious and remorseful thoughts for himself as well as for his cousin; and, much as he revolved the affair in his mind, he could hit upon no feasible plan of deliverance.
“If I had only told our folk where we were going,” he reflected, “they would hunt for us when they find us missing. But now they will be uneasy, and not know where on earth we are! No; they won’t have the slightest clue to track us! Oh, dear! What is going to become of us? How is this spree to end? What about my ankle? What on earth! Well, now are we to stay here all night? Will in the cave, and I here? ‘So near, and yet so far!’ My stars! I’ve read that in stories, but I never guessed what it meant! ‘So near, and yet so far!’ The man that wrote those words knew more than I ever shall, anyway! Oh! What will the demon do to poor Will?”
Henry could reason logically, and now, as well as his aching ankle would permit, he reviewed the whole scheme of visiting the Demon’s Cave. In the light he now had it seemed very foolish, whichever way he looked at it.
“It was a humbug,” he acknowledged to himself; “but after all it is just what all heroes do, and I don’t see why we should not have managed it better.”
His sprained ankle pained him intensely; he began to feel the effects of his involuntary ride down hill; the place where the “bullet” struck him smarted and itched in a manner to make him writhe. In a word, he was miserable in both body and mind.
He reverted to the scene of conflict! “What could have been wrong with that pistol?” he asked himself angrily. “Something struck me—but what? Certainly, not a bullet. My father says that a big dose of powder will drive almost anything hard and solid into the flesh. Now, this struck me, and hurt me; but it didn’t punch a hole through my vest. Well, if I could only unload this other pistol, I should know to a certainty.—What became of the pistol Will fired? If he carried it off with him, he may suddenly scare the demon out of his wits!—Now, I wonder whether Will loaded my pistols wrong on purpose!—Well, this is rum old sport, sitting here like a dying gladiator, and not able to turn over for fear of howling with pain! No; I can’t budge from this spot!—Botheration! I won’t take Will to see any more curiosities!—Surely, the demon won’t hurt him!”
Thus the boy continued, speaking disjointed sentences just as the spirit moved him.
As no help came to him, he, the irrepressible, began to despond. It seemed to him that Death only would come to his release. Suddenly, he thought of the glass ink bottle hidden behind “Robinson Crusoe” in his drawer. He dwelt on it for the space of three minutes, and then, between a sigh and a groan, he said: “I wish I knew whether she would care if I should die here—alone, and in pain! Would she be sorry, or would she go to school as light-hearted as ever, and let some other boy sharpen her pencil? I wonder whether she would borrow Johnny Jones’ history! Oh! how I despise that boy! I wish I could see him leave the country! I wish now that I had given her my history out and out; that would keep my memory green in her eyes.”
Now, as Henry seldom or never soared higher than comparison,—to make our meaning clearer, as he was not in the habit of apostrophizing his treasured glass ink-bottle as an animated being of the feminine gender,—we must conclude that the veil is lifted from a romance in his life.
Do not laugh at him, reader; his woes were actual. In fact, we venture to assert that every member of the sterner sex, from the age of sixteen or seventeen till he is happily married, if he has any feeling, any heart, any soul, suffers more or less acutely from jealousy of a rival, real or imaginary.
After a time the moon came out, and dimly lighted up the valley. Henry was not afraid of goblins; and in sheer desperation he resolved to wait doggedly till something should happen.
Notwithstanding all his woes, he began to feel hungry. Then he recollected that he had set out with a knapsack of sandwiches slung over his shoulder.
“It will amuse me, and turn my wandering thoughts into a different channel,” he muttered, as he felt for the knapsack.
Alas! In sliding down hill his knapsack had been torn into ribbons, so that the carefully prepared sandwiches were strewn along the hillside.
His thoughts were “turned into a different channel;” but he was not very much “amused.”
In this way, the time passed with Henry. He could not, or would not, make an effort to move from the heap of earth which had arrested his downward course.
Having thus disposed of him, how did it fare with Will?
When the demon re-entered the cave, he, according to his custom, fastened the door. Next he kindled a good fire on the smouldering coals of the old one; and then, having stepped up to the room where Will was a prisoner, he unlocked and opened the door and told him to come out. Will did so with alacrity.
The demon said no more, but pointed out a seat, and quietly prepared to get supper. He took a fat bird out of his pouch, and roasted it carefully over the fire. Then he fixed part of a chicken, a delicious fish, and sundry other eatables, each on a separate stick, where the fire would cook them. To Will’s astonishment, he suddenly appeared with a few slices of bread, which he put on a toaster and toasted while the other things were being cooked. Now, who ever read about a hermit that toasted bread?
By the way, the demon, like the writer in inditing these few chapters, had several “irons in the fire” at once.
When everything was ready, he set a table with the food thus prepared, and took a pan of skim-milk from a crazy cupboard built in the wall.
“Sit down and eat,” he said to Will; “I’ll speak with you afterwards.”
Will was in no humor to care about eating, and as it was yet early in the evening he was not hungry; but not liking to refuse the strange man’s hospitality, he sat down to the table and “ate like an emigrant,” as Henry would have phrased it. He afterwards told his friends that the “victuals were very good.”
After supper the demon cleared off the table and put everything in the room in far better order than it was when the hero was taken into it.
Up to this time scarcely a word had been spoken between them. Will was filled with dread that he had killed, or at least severely hurt, his cousin. He, of course, did not know that Henry was in full possession of his senses as he lay on the ground, nor that he was doing this only to disarm the demon. The wildest fears flashed through his brain; his sufferings were more intense than Stephen’s had been on the island. He blamed himself; he blamed Henry; he blamed the pistols; he blamed the demon. Yet he felt himself utterly unable to escape. And he was troubled on his own account. What did the demon intend to do with him? Why did he detain him there? These questions perplexed the boy; and not knowing what else to do, he tried hard to think it all a dream. But no; it could not be a dream, for in a dream there is never any smoke to make one sneeze. Then Henry’s wild tales about the demon’s cannibalism and cruelty recurred to him. Certainly, the demon’s look was forbidding—almost ferocious; but Will did not think him capable of torturing any one. He had too much good sense to think that the man would do him any harm; but still he feared him, and felt ill at ease in his presence.
He had had no particular desire to come on this wild-goose-chase, because he wished to keep out of mischief during his stay at his aunt’s. He was not so mercurial, whimsical, and romantic, as his cousin, and he had consented to go as much to please him as for any other reason.
“I think I shall have to get pa to shut me up, if I ever find my way back home,” he mused, in his despair. “No matter what I do, something always comes to grief. I thought surely it would be safe to fly a little balloon, when Henry had always done it. But no; it must come down, and set a building on fire! How is it that everything goes wrong with me? Am I a blockhead, or a fool? Oh dear! I get into worse scrapes every time; but this is the worst yet—this beats them all! If Henry and I survive this, I suppose we shall stumble into something that will finish us entirely! Now, I knew it was wrong to start with loaded pistols, and I didn’t want to do it. Then, why did I? I deserve all this misery for my foolishness. But poor Henry! It seems to me now that he must be alive. Oh! If I could only know!”
Then he began to wonder how it was that the demon had come upon them so suddenly. “He was there all at once,” Will said to himself, as he glanced furtively at the “recluse.” “Did he come from the cave, or the valley, or the bank, or a hollow in the tree, or the clouds? All I know is, he wasn’t anywhere near, till suddenly he had me in his arms! And Henry was as much surprised to see him as I was! Well, the man must be a wizard—or else a witch, or a humbug! If I could only get away!”
It has been shown that Henry reflected that no one would know where to look for them. The same appalling thought occurred to Will. But, like an inspiration, it came to him that the teamster who had given them a ride eyed them narrowly as they went up the valley.
“Now, if that teamster will only do us as good a turn as the sailor did when we paddled away in the punt,” he said to himself, “we may be saved yet!”
Boy-like, the hero pinned his faith on the teamster, and felt considerably happier. In fact, five minutes more, and he had settled it in his own mind that, sooner or later, they would be saved through him.
Some writers, with fiendish ingenuity, seem to set themselves deliberately to work to unstring the nerves of their weak-headed readers, so that they shall plunge headlong into unfortunate speculations, and be ruined.
But the writer of this history is actuated by no such motives. He, good soul, uses no guile with his readers, wishes to deprive no one of needful sleep, and would shrink with horror from tampering with any one’s business or intellect.
When the writer was a boy, he read a strong and exciting romance, written by a master-hand. There were no idle dissertations in it; every chapter, every paragraph, every sentence, every line, rang with meaning; and it was so forcibly written that it would captivate a stronger mind than his. He [your humble servant, “the writer,”] was not content with one perusal, but read it again, and then lent it to three other boys, who read it with equal avidity. When returned, he might have been tempted to read it for the third time; but, alas! those boys, in their eagerness to read, had apparently neglected to wash their hands; and had turned over the leaves so hurriedly that it was in a state of dilapidation.
The writer has nothing to say against that romance. He learned many things from it, and unhesitatingly pronounces it the best he ever read. It is still green in his memory—in fact, he looks back on it to-day with feelings of respect and admiration. But it distracted his thoughts from his lessons, and muddled his wits to such an extent that he fears sometimes they are muddled yet.
Behold the result. A reaction set in, and all preposterous romances, that one excepted, have become to him an abomination.
Hence outbursts like the one above.
Chapter XX.
A Glorious Triumph.
We have strayed so far from our subject that the reader may be at a loss to take our original meaning. If so, when the boys are saved let him refer to Will’s soliloquy and what immediately follows, and light will burst upon him.
Will drew nearer the fire, and looked at the demon with wondering eyes, as every fifteen minutes or so he swung the huge fan suspended from the ceiling. This fan effectually cleared the apartment of smoke, but what became of the smoke was to Will an appalling mystery.
As time passed, and no relief came, Will’s uneasiness returned. His anxiety about Henry became intolerable; he could endure it no longer. Better even to anger the demon than sit in silence and suffer torments. When he went out, surely he must have seen Henry.
This hero was one of those extremely patient people who, lest they should incommode somebody else, will endure untold agony, when a simple question might set all their doubts and fears at rest.
“Sir,” he ventured to ask, “do you think he was badly hurt? Or—or—didn’t you go to look for him?”
The demon, who had been sitting beside the fire for the last half hour, with his head resting on his hands and his elbows supported by his knees, started violently. He had evidently been so deeply absorbed in thought that he had forgotten another was present.
“Ha!” he cried excitedly. “Ha! What is this?” (Madmen always say “ha!” generally twice.) Then, recovering himself, he added, “Yes, yes; I’m going to speak to you presently. What did you say just now?”
Will repeated his question.
“Ho! There was another with you, then!” he exclaimed. “I was afraid that I had been mistaken again. I am deceived so often that I don’t know when to believe even myself. Then there was another. But he had gone when I went out to see. Who was he?”
Will was thunder-struck. Could he rely on this strange man? If Henry had gone, he could not have been killed. But where could he be? Had he forsaken him, his cousin? No; he could not believe that Henry, so noble, brave, and true, could be guilty of such treachery. Then had he been found by some one, and taken away? If so, why did he not return with a band of men to save his cousin? In truth, Will was mystified. If he had known that the poor boy was near him, lying helpless on the ground, exposed to the cold night air, and moaning with pain, he would have thought their case a desperate one indeed.
At length he collected himself sufficiently to answer the demon’s question by giving his cousin’s name.
“And who are you?” asked the madman.
“William Lawrence.”
“Why did you two come here?” the demon asked abruptly.
This was an unexpected question; Will was not prepared to answer it. “To see the cave,” he said at last.
“Did you two come alone, or is some one else lurking near?”
“No, sir; we came entirely alone.”
“That is well. You did not come to do me any harm?”
Will thought he could safely say “no” to that.
After a pause the demon said slowly, as though he had settled it in his own mind: “You are a good little boy. I like you; you must stay with me; I want a fine little fellow like you to be with me all the time.”
Will was struck dumb with consternation. He could not appreciate the compliment thus paid him.
“No, sir,” he said imploringly, “I cannot stay here at all. You must let me out, and I must find my cousin and go home.”
“No, I cannot let you go! You shall live with me for the rest of my life. Sit down!” he cried, as Will started to his feet.
Then he darted to the door, and placed his back against it.
“But what would my parents say to that? They would never let me stay here,” Will protested.
Luckless boy! In his distress he knew not what to do or say.
“Parents? Have you parents?” the demon inquired.
“Certainly I have,” said Will, with great dignity.
“Then, why did they allow a little boy, you are only a boy, to come here at this time of night?”
Will could say nothing in his defence. He hung his head in confusion.
“Well, I shall keep you here till morning, at least. If I should let you go now, how do I know what you two might plot against me? No! Here you are; here you stay!”
Will was only a boy, and he did not consider that a strong man is seldom or never afraid of the machinations of school-boys, so he said earnestly: “If you let me out immediately, I promise that we will go: home as fast as possible.”
The demon continuing inexorable, the boy said desperately, “Sir, we have friends who will certainly come for us, if you do not let me out.”
“Say no more,” replied the demon, “for I cannot let you go. Listen: People take it into their heads sometimes to molest me, but I always come out all right! I teach them a lesson that they remember! Your punishment will be to remain till I choose to set you free.”
The horrible stories told by Henry again flashed through the prisoner’s mind, but he was not terrified. Looking intently at the demon, he fancied that instead of wickedness he saw playfulness in his eye.
“He is only trying to frighten me,” was Will’s thought.
The demon had moved back to the fire after making his last remark, and presently Will, seeing no other means of escape, sprang to his feet and rushed headlong towards the door. He had barely reached it when the demon was upon him. Once more two long and sinewy arms encircled the helpless boy, and he was borne struggling back to the fire.
“Treacherous boy!” cried the demon. “I’ll settle your fate in the morning; now you will have to be locked up in your room.”
Without another word he carried Will into the bedroom already described, and laid him upon the bed.
“Get in between the quilts, and you will be comfortable,” he said, as he turned to go.
Again the door was fastened, and again our blundering hero found himself a close prisoner in the demon’s bedroom.
His thoughts were far from being pleasant. “If I had had the cleverness of any other boy, I should not be here now,” he muttered. “By my own silly questions and answers I only made matters worse. Henry, Charley, George, or even Marmaduke, could have outwitted him easily; Steve would have made him a prisoner, ten to one, and escaped at his leisure. Oh! this is horrible! I must get away!”
He jumped lightly off the bed, and knelt before the door. By good fortune, he found a crack through which he could observe every movement made by the demon.
“Well, this is a good beginning!” he said, hopefully, “I shall watch till he goes to bed, and then try again.”
But the demon, with provoking composure, sat and dozed before his fire.
Time passed exceedingly slowly to poor Will. He thought it must be near the middle of the night, while it was not yet ten o’clock.
At length the madman arose and opened a concealed door in the wall. Then he lighted a candle, passed in, and shut the door softly behind him.
Will, like all boys, had a touch of the romantic, and he was delighted to see Henry’s suspicions verified. His spirits rose, and he chuckled joyously: “Well, it’s a regular robbers’ den, after all. Concealed doors and everything to match. If Henry is only alive, and I can get away, it won’t be so bad, after all! And now that he’s gone I guess I can manage it, after all!”
He waited a few minutes, and then began to fumble at his door. While in the outer room with the demon, he had taken notice of the way in which this door was fastened, and seen that it was by means of a heavy bolt on the outside. He had also observed that in the door, above the bolt, there seemed to be an opening, covered with a shingle that slid back and forth on the inside.
Feeling carefully for this shingle, he found it, took out a pin which held it fast, and shoved it back.
“The demon ain’t so careful as he wants to be!” Will said sagely. “Surely, here is a loophole of escape! I wish I could ease my feelings by heaping up big and meaning words, as Henry or George would do.”
He waited a few moments in some uneasiness, fearing that the demon might have heard him tampering with the lock; but as all remained quiet he put his hand through the opening, and shoved back the bolt.
The door opened, and Will stood in the outer room.
Having taken the precaution of shutting and bolting his door, he was warily drawing near the front door, when a strange sound proceeding from the demon’s hiding-place attracted his attention.
He heard the clink of money.
Will paused. “I’ll see what this means,” he said heroically, “but I’ll not run the risk of being captured. No; I’m too near freedom to throw away my chances just to see a crazy man finger his money.”
Picking up a stick from the smouldering fire, he softly approached the concealed door.
Poor boy! Experience should have taught him better than to play the Robber-Kitten—but when does experience profit a boy?
His usual luck befell him; he stumbled and fell prostrate with a crash.
The demon must have heard him, for he had barely regained his feet when, with a cry of dismay, the concealed door was flung open. On seeing Will, the demon did not stop to shut it, but darted upon him with fury. In his headlong course he struck against a stone and fell heavily.
Will waited to see him rise, and stood ready to defend himself. But the demon lay upon the floor immovable. His head had struck some hard substance, and he was insensible.
Presently Will went up to the demon. “Poor fellow!” he said compassionately, “he is badly hurt! His fall was serious; mine was only a stumble. I can’t go away and leave him in this state; I must help him.”
Tenderly he raised the powerless man, and exerting all his strength, he dragged him to a bench close by, and laid him on it. Then he saw that the demon’s head was severely hurt.
“Now, if he wakes up and finds me taking care of him, he won’t hurt me; so I shall go and get some water to bathe his head,” was Will’s next thought. “Henry said there was a spring, or water of some kind, in the cave, but there is certainly none in this room. Well, I must leave him and look for some.”
Snatching up a little pail, he hurried into the room which the demon had just left. Here he stopped a moment to look about. The room was very much like the two already described; there was a rude couch in it, but it was scantily furnished. The demon had evidently given up his “best bedroom” to Will.
Our hero’s wandering eyes soon rested on the most noticeable “chattel” in the room,—a large and strong box, the lid of which lay open. In this box there was a little pile of silver coins.
“Hello!” he said, “The demon has some money, after all! This is what he was jingling and counting, I suppose. Well, there’s no water here; I must go on.”
If Will had stopped to count the demon’s treasure, he would have found it a very modest fortune. In round numbers it amounted to only five dollars. ($5.00.)
A door stood open, leading from this room into a larger one.
“I’d better try this,” Will muttered. “It looks dark enough and big enough for a cavern, and there ought to be water in it, if anywhere.”
Having made his way into this apartment, Will found it to be spacious, but dark and desolate. A solitary lamp, which burned feebly, was of little avail in such darkness. After taking a few steps he heard the purling of water; and on reaching the spot he found a little stream of pure water, which doubtless emptied into the brook in the valley, running over the ground. He filled his pail and hurriedly retraced his steps, noticing several openings into the outer room, concealed there, but visible here.
“Well, this demon is a queer fellow!” he soliloquized, as he went along. “He seems to have all kinds of hiding-places here, that nobody knows about. Now, what in the world does he do with so many rooms, and why does he keep a light burning in this hole? Perhaps he keeps it burning all the time on account of the darkness. I don’t wonder he has money; it must take a fortune to live here, for it is just the same as living in a castle. Well, I’ve explored his secret regions till I’m tired of it; and I guess Henry was right when he said a band of robbers fitted it up for a menagerie.”
A minute later he was again with the demon, whom he found still insensible. Taking out his handkerchief, he bathed the man’s head gently, and did everything he could to restore consciousness. But all in vain.
“Oh, dear!” he cried, “I shall have to leave him and look for Henry. I’m sure Henry is alive, but I must find him, and then we can come here again and help the demon.”
He arose and left the cave.
The writer has a great deal of boldness in attempting to depict the emotions of his numerous heroes in their joys or sorrows; but he declines to say anything about the meeting of the cousins on this occasion. It was affecting in the extreme.
As time passed and the boys did not return, Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer became very uneasy. Being fully aware of their son’s recklessness, they did not know what danger he and Will might, even at that moment, be incurring. All day the two had been whispering mysteriously together, as though contriving some dark scheme; and perhaps, like Don Quixote and his squire, they had set out in quest of adventures.
“Why couldn’t they have said where they were going, anyway?” Mr. Mortimer growled impatiently.
Mrs. Mortimer was a woman who permitted her son to do very much as he pleased, never interfering with his plans of amusement as long as he kept within proper bounds.
“Henry said he would tell me all about it when he came back; and he seemed, to be in such a hurry that I didn’t like to question him,” she said mildly. “I—I think it must be all right.”
“Let us go up to the boys’ room,” Mr. Mortimer said; “perhaps we can find a clue to their whereabouts.”
They went up-stairs immediately. The cousins had not shut the drawer, and a single glance into it told that they had been loading pistols.
“Oh! this is horrible!” groaned Mr. Mortimer. “Wasn’t that boy Will sent here because he got into disgrace about gunpowder?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Mortimer said faintly.
“Yes; and now, after trying to destroy the boys in his own village, he has come here, to put an end to our Henry!” he continued fiercely. “Till he came, Henry’s balloons were all right, and I was proud of them; but see how he tampered with his model! Henry never dreamed of loading his pistols, and going out with them. Henry is full of life, I know; but this is all that boy’s doings.”
This was unjust to poor Will; but what parent would have laid the blame on his own son?
Seeing that his wife was ready to burst into tears, he moderated his anger, and said soothingly, “Oh, they’re all right, Nelly; Henry knows enough to keep out of danger, if Will doesn’t. But I can’t stand this suspense any longer; I’ll go out and hunt till I find them; and I’ll let you know as soon as I get on their track.”
As he went out of the house he muttered audibly: “Well, I must send word to this boy’s mother to keep him in leading-strings till he’s twenty-one. How easily we manage Henry! It’s all in management, of course; and if Mrs. Lawrence would do as well as her sister, Will would be a very good boy. As it is, he can’t behave himself even away from home; and now the two are deep in some horrible powder trick!”
How grieved Henry would have been if he could have heard his father speak slightingly of his elaborate plot as a “trick”!
Boys, here is another pretty precept, which you will do well to commit to memory: Never associate with those who are smarter than yourselves; for, if you do, you will be blamed equally with them when they lead you into mischief.
After many fruitless inquiries, Mr. Mortimer at length met with a youth who told him that about dark he had seen Henry and another boy riding off with a teamster. Mr. Mortimer felt relieved, and sent word to his wife; but for some time he could trace them no farther. At last, however, he found the very teamster,—he having returned to the city,—and from him he learnt where the boys probably were.
Having assembled a body of men, he set out for the cave forthwith, and reached it a few minutes after Will had joined Henry. A happy meeting took place, and tears of joy and thankfulness trickled down the cheeks of the knights-errant. Henry was tenderly carried to the road, and put into a vehicle in waiting.
Meanwhile, Will was speaking to Mr. Mortimer about the demon. He listened attentively; and seeing no better way of settling the matter, he determined to take the unfortunate man home with him. Then, after fastening up the cave against intruders, the entire party returned to town.
On the way, Henry and Will recounted their exploits glibly; the former nobly taking to himself all the blame, or heroism, the latter putting in a word now and then to enforce the others remarks. Poor boys! Now that the affair was over they wished to make the best of it. Mr. Mortimer listened patiently, and gradually it dawned upon him that his own son had planned this expedition to the cave. However, as long as Henry had done it, it must be all right. He did not reprove them for their foolishness; he was troubled about many things, and feared that his son’s injuries were more serious than they seemed.
When the cousins entered the town they found that there was something of a commotion among the people. Prominent citizens stopped Mr. Mortimer to express their congratulations, and to see the youths who had “bearded the lion in his den;” while the little street Arabs gave vent to their feelings by shouting, “Bully for you!” “Henry’s a bouncer!” “Up with yer hands, and off with yer hats; Henry’s the boy for to b-u-s-t um!”
“Will, I guess we’re heroes, after all!” Henry chuckled, “When I was suffering down there at the foot of the hill, I almost concluded that we’d made fools of ourselves; but this doesn’t seem like it!”
“Yes; but I wish they wouldn’t take so much notice of us.”
“Fiddle! Will, you ought to live in the city!”
The party moved on. A golden head leaned out of the upper window of a certain house which they were approaching; the beautiful blue eyes glanced anxiously up and down the street; a well-known voice—the voice of the girl who had given Henry a glass ink-bottle—asked timidly of a passer-by: “Have they found them yet?”
A certain boy—by name, the estimable Johnny Jones—was loitering near, blinking with sleep and jealousy; and he took it upon himself to answer jeeringly: “Found them? Oh, yes; they’ve found the heroes, and they’re carting them home in the wagon that’s just here.”
The golden head was drawn in quickly, but the window was not shut.
The heroes were so near that they heard all. Then again the street Arabs ran alongside; again they took up their cry.
Poor Johnny Jones! His envy, or jealousy, was almost too much for him.
And Henry?
His heart bounded with delight; he was supremely happy. To hear such words from her lips was ample recompense for all that he had suffered or might yet suffer.
It was nearly five years later; Henry was just twenty-one. He and a beautiful woman, dressed in bridal costume, were stepping into a railway carriage that was to take them to a steamer about to set sail for Europe.
“Will,” he said suddenly, “pull off your hat quick, and bow! I—I can’t; I’m too stiff.”
Wonderingly, and, alas! how awkwardly, Will raised his hat.
After they had passed the house Henry began to wonder what Johnny Jones had been doing there. Had he been talking to her? His eyes flashed fire; he was miserable.
Foolish boy, he was troubling himself needlessly. And if he had been more a philosopher, he would have known that Jonny Jones, in saying those few jeering words, had forever ruined his cause in the eyes of————.
When the cousins reached home, Henry’s remaining pistol was unloaded, and a hearty laugh followed; for all knew, of course, that both pistols must have been loaded alike.
Henceforth, he could have the pleasure of telling his school-mates that he had been “shot.” There was, however, one drawback: there was no wound to heal, and there would be no scar to show to doubters.
Henry was thoroughly warmed; his ankle was rubbed with sundry liniments and carefully bound up; and then the young adventurers were sent to bed.
“Well, Will, among other consolations there is this: we don’t sit up till ten minutes to twelve every night, do we?”
“No. And we did it, Henry, after all! I explored the whole cave, and I’ll tell you all about it to-morrow; I’m too tired now. Besides, we rescued the demon!”
This proves that the heroes had not profited by their sufferings.
Meantime, the people of the house had been taking care of the madman. Under their careful treatment he recovered sufficiently to be able to sit up and converse.
He also had a “tale to tell,” but deferred telling it till the next day; and by one o’clock the whole household was wrapped in slumber.
Chapter XXI.
Uncle Dick Himself Again.
The exposure of that night brought on a severe attack of rheumatism, and the next day Henry was tossing about on his bed in agony. His sprained ankle also was very painful.
A doctor was sent for in haste; and under his treatment and Mrs. Mortimer’s watchful care, the boy recovered slowly.
Will was so grieved to see his cousin suffer that he almost fell sick himself; and he took up his stand at the bedside, so that he might attend to his slightest wish.
“I don’t mind being sick so much,” said Henry, as Will was peeling an orange for him, “because it proves that a fellow’s mother and—and—and friends care for him, and want him to get well; but, I don’t want the rheumatism, because it’s mostly old men and hardly used soldiers that suffer with it.”
“What should you like to have?” asked Will.
“Well, Will, I don’t mind telling you. Will, I’ve always had a hankering to be wounded so that it would leave an honorable scar—a scar that I could be proud of, you know.”
The morning after the rescue the demon had a totally different air. He no longer regarded strangers with suspicion, but frankly and promptly replied to all who spoke to him. His eyes were calm and benign, no longer having that “hunted look” which seemed so terrible. In a word, the demon was no longer a madman; “the blow on his head had restored his reason.”
In real life this is, we believe, an uncommon occurrence; but in romance it is becoming intolerably common. It is inserted in novels that are otherwise good; it haunts some writers like an evil spirit; it is tricked up in a new garb, sometimes, to throw the unsuspecting reader off his guard; but if it is there, sooner or later it will crop out—often when least expected, least desired.
In fact, whenever the practised reader picks up a tale in which a harmless maniac figures, his suspicions are at once aroused, and he flings it aside with a gesture of contempt.
Having called Mr. Mortimer to his side, the disenthralled man said, with a pleasant voice, “Sir, I do not know where I am, and I should like to ask you a few questions. Last night I was not in a humor to make inquiries, as I was so tired and weak; but this morning I am much better and stronger. May I ask your name?”
Mr. Mortimer was surprised at and pleased with the man’s improved appearance.
“I am happy to see that you are so much better, sir,” he said. “As to my name, it is Mortimer; may I, in turn, ask yours?”
“Certainly, sir; I am Richard Lawrence.”
Mr. Mortimer started. He perceived that the man who spoke was in full possession of his reason, quite as sane as he himself. In former years he had been intimately acquainted with Dick Lawrence; the story of the “mysterious disappearance” was familiar to him; and he thought that at last the mystery was to be solved.
He seized Lawrence’s hand and shook it heartily.
“Don’t you remember me, old friend?” he said. “Don’t you remember when you beat me in that race, so long ago? And besides, we are almost related to each other; for, as you surely remember, your brother and I married sisters.”
A long conversation followed between the two reunited friends. The events of other years were spoken of with peculiar pleasure, and Mr. Mortimer told his friend what had been taking place in the world of late years.
“Well, now, I had almost forgotten!” Mr. Mortimer suddenly exclaimed. “Your nephew Will is in this very house! You will remember him as a very little boy; and now he is a—a—now he is a great big boy. I must bring him in immediately.”
He hurried out of the room and soon returned with Will, saying apologetically, “You must excuse me, Will, but when two old friends meet, they forget that there are boys still in the world, and remember only that they were once boys themselves.” Then to his guest: “Mr. Lawrence, I have the pleasure of introducing your nephew Will, who is on a visit to my son. I think it is safe to say that you owe your deliverance to these hare-brained youths. You will hear graphic particulars of it afterwards.”
A happy meeting took place between uncle and nephew, the former being highly pleased with his new-found kinsman.
“Yes,” Mr. Mortimer resumed, “this is your nephew Will; a fine little fellow, who had a strange interview with you last night. Have you any recollection of it?”
“Not the slightest; so far as I know, I have not seen the boy since, since—when?”
“Ten years, uncle.”
“Then you know nothing about your life in the cave?” Mr. Mortimer asked.
“You are speaking in riddles, Mr. Mortimer.”
“My son, Will’s cousin, is ill to-day, or I should present him; for he, dear boy, was instrumental in your release,” the fond father observed, wishing that his son should receive due honor for his good deeds.
Mr. Lawrence was impatient to see his brother, but there were several matters to attend to before this could be done.
“There is a strange tale yet to be unfolded, Mr. Mortimer,” he said musingly. “I must visit the town where insanity first took hold of me. There are many things not clear to me; but I believe that by going there, I shall be enabled to unriddle the mystery. A foul wrong was done to me in that place, and I will have justice. As I intimated, I know absolutely nothing of what took place while I was insane; but I believe all that can be made clear by making diligent inquiries of people living in R——. Yes, I shall go to this place in a day or so; then take a run down to my brother’s; and come back just in time to go home with Will. But first of all, I shall visit the cave where I spent so many years; and you and my nephew must accompany me. I am full of curiosity to see the place, but I suppose I shall have to be piloted through it.”
A day or so afterwards Mr. Lawrence felt stronger, and the three set out to explore the cave. Will thought that he was going to the Demon’s Cave under very different circumstances, and sighed because Henry was unable to accompany them. But Henry was destined never to enter that cave.
When they arrived at the place, they perceived that some one was there before them, as the door stood open. As they passed in they heard a confused murmur of voices, together with whistling, singing, and hallooing. Evidently, the intruders were trying to keep up their spirits and intimidate any goblins that might be hovering near. A great fire was blazing in the old place, but the explorers seemed to be in the largest cave.
Suddenly the new-comers were heard, and a howl of horror came from the explorers.
“Oh, golly! It’s the demon or somethin’ else!” wailed one.
Then two wild and fearful eyes peered out through the concealed door, and a voice quavered: “N-o-o, it ain’t the demon; but I guess we’d better clear!”
Seven gaunt youths stole through the concealed door; glanced fearfully at the new-comers; and then broke and fled tumultuously out of the front entrance.
The two men smiled; the boy laughed.
“A boy is the same creature that he was when I was young,” Mr. Lawrence observed.
“They’re the very fellow’s that cheered us the other night,” said Will. “I guess they wanted to be ‘bouncers’ too.”
“Now, why in this world did the little rogues make a fire?” Mr. Mortimer queried.
“That question is easily answered,” said Mr. Lawrence. “When a boy comes upon a heap of wood, the temptation to kindle a fire, if he has any means of doing so, is too great for him to resist.”
“And you see nothing here that is familiar to you?” asked Mr. Mortimer.
“No; everything is strange to me; and I must apply to Will to lead the way.”
“Uncle, how queer it is that I should know more about your cave than you do!” said Will, grinning foolishly. “It doesn’t seem that you are the same man that picked me up and carried me off.”
“That’s because I’ve visited the tailor and the barber, Will.”
“Well, uncle, if I hadn’t been through the cave that night, we shouldn’t know anything about the money.”
“Money!” cried both men, in a breath.
“Yes,” Will replied. “I found a little pile of money, but so many queer things happened since that I forgot all about it. Come this way, uncle; it is in this room.”
“Your lost fortune!” Mr. Mortimer exclaimed.
“Perhaps,” sighed Uncle Dick.
“If those explorers have not enriched themselves with it!”
But the treasure was found untouched.
“Is this what you found?” cried Mr. Mortimer, with disgust. “This is intolerable—monstrous—outrageous! This—this—”
“No, I think it’s all right,” said Mr. Lawrence. “There is a mystery behind it, but when that mystery is cleared up, I think we shall find that this is all there is left.”
“I guess the boys didn’t see it,” Will observed, “or else they were afraid to meddle with it.”
“No,” said Uncle Dick, “a boy has more honesty than most people imagine. Well, Will, what there is, is yours. Take it, Will; it won’t fill more than one pocket; but I wish, for your sake, it were a fortune indeed.”
“If I hadn’t left these inside doors open, the boys wouldn’t have been able to explore these two rooms,” Will presently remarked. “Now, I wonder whether they found those hens and chickens! I didn’t, but I didn’t look for them.”
“‘Hens and chickens!’” growled Mr. Mortimer. “What’s the matter now, Will?”
“Why, Henry said the demon—I—I mean my uncle—had lots of hens and chickens here, and I heard them clucking several times while I was in the cave; but I never saw’ a scratch of them.”
“Perhaps the young explorers made away with them,” Uncle Dick suggested.
“No, uncle, they found their way here only because I had left the concealed doors open,” Will said. “I guess the hens are some place else.”
“We don’t know how many hidden chambers there may be here, nor what secrets they may hold,” Mr. Mortimer sighed despairingly.
“There can’t be many more,” Uncle Dick replied. “We’ll say there is one more apartment, in which my nephew’s hens are cooped up. Now, unless they set up a cackling, how are we to know where to look for them? I think we had better leave them to their fate. No! Will, listen! When we get back to town, speak about these hens incidentally to some little tobacco-chewer, and within an hour a force of would-be desperadoes will troop down to this cave, and liberate these hens or perish in the ruins of the general demolition!”
To economize time and space, to ease the reader’s anxiety, and to maintain the reputation of this history for exactness and solidity, it may here be stated that although Will set a band of street Arabs on the track of those miserable hens and chickens, they were never found, and the probability is that they are slowly becoming fossils.
The three then made a burning stave serve for a torch, and marched through the cavern in which Will had found the water. Then they returned and went into the “best bedroom.”
“I have a fancy that there is money buried here,—buried, or concealed in some article of furniture,” Mr. Mortimer observed.
“I doubt that,” said Uncle Dick. “Now, if your son were well, he and Will might come here and ransack every cavern. What a pity we interrupted those boys! They would have amused themselves here all day, and would certainly have found whatever there may be to find! Poor little fellows, their fun had just begun! Well, they will be back again, and then they are welcome to all the spoil they can carry away.”
Having fastened the outer door, the party returned to the city.
Chapter XXII.
Uncle Dick Evolves His Story.
The next day Mr. Lawrence, leaving his nephew still with Henry, went to the town of which he had spoken. Here insanity had taken hold of him, and here he expected to unravel his mysteries.
The two boys laid their heads together, and arrived at the conclusion that the world is not hollow, after all; and that if they were not heroes yet, a few years would make them so.
“The stuff is in us, Will; all we have to do is to work it up.”
“Yes, Henry; and when you come to see me, the people in our neighborhood had better be prepared. There are no captives for us to rescue, but I guess you can hit on something good.”
“Why, Will,” said Henry, smiling his delight, “you are almost getting to be like any other boy! You—you talk sensibly. What has come over you?”
“Well, when I saw that good came from our journey to the cave, and that we rescued my uncle, I concluded that I had been wrong and you right. I guess it’s safe to play tricks with you, anyway; and——”
“‘Tricks!’” echoed Henry, scowling horribly.
“No, no!” Will hastily declared. “I—I—mean—Henry—Don’t be vexed, Henry; I meant stratagems!”
The affronted patient softened. “Yes, that is the word you meant, Will,” he said, “but you always ought to say what you mean. I always do; and so I never have to stumble, and correct myself, and appear as though I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Will’s eyes expressed a mild rebuke.
Henry was not fluent in making apologies; on this occasion he simply said, with a look of pain that spoke volumes in his behalf: “It’s in my left knee, Will; hand me that bottle, please.”
“Next time I venture on any more stratagems,—if I ever do venture on any more,—I’ll warn all the sailors and teamsters in the settlement, so that I can be rescued just in the nick of time,” Will Said good humoredly.
“Yes, as long as they didn’t follow too close at your heels, and spoil the fun. Well, Will, I knew I could cure you if you stayed with me long enough; but I didn’t expect to do it so soon.”
When the patient was easy Will read to him. The books that pleased them most were about mustached heroes who cruised in Polynesia, discovering “sea-girt isles” which Captain Cook and later navigators had missed, and which almost invariably held captive some ragged individual, who, after divers adventures with pirates and Chinamen, had finally succeeded in nailing $795,143 up in a mahogany coffin, only to be shipwrecked with it.
In after years Will looked back on those days spent with Henry as the pleasantest in his boyhood. He had no haunting dreams; got into no disgrace; and, except when he thought of poor Stephen, felt no reproaches of conscience.
One day the mother of the girl who had given Henry a glass ink-bottle came in to inquire personally after his health.
“I heard you were getting better, Henry, but I thought I should like to come and see for myself,” she said pleasantly.
“I wonder now if she didn’t hint to her mother to do this!” Henry thought to himself. “I believe she did; but I wish I knew. Why can’t folks tell the truth, anyway, and say right out how it is! How am I to find out! I know when she had a bad cold, I hinted till my mother went there to ask about her! Botheration! I will know!”
“It’s very good of you to take so much interest in me,” he ventured, slightly emphasizing the word you.
“Yes, Henry, when I saw the doctor call here twice yesterday I thought I must step in and see you.”
The boy was silenced, but not satisfied.
“I’ve brought a book for you, Henry, that I think you will like,” she said, taking a handsomely bound volume out of her reticule and laying it on a stand at Henry’s elbow.
He picked it up. “Her book!” he thought exultingly. “I know it’s hers, for I’ve heard her speak of it. She sent it to me! Of course she did. She sent it!”
Once more his heart bounded with ecstasy; once more he was supremely happy. The blood rushed to his face; his lips quivered; his hands trembled.
The visitor remarked this, and turning to Mrs. Mortimer said sympathetically, “Poor boy! How patiently he bears it!”
Then, stepping up to the bedside, she laid her hands on his head, kissed his forehead gently and affectionately, and asked softly, “Is the pain very bad, Henry?”
It seemed to Henry that his heart stood still.
“It is her mother,” he thought, “and she has kissed me!”
Their eyes met. A woman perceives many things intuitively; Henry’s secret was hers from that moment. For all answer she kissed him again. From that day the two were firm and true friends.
When Henry found himself alone he examined every leaf of that book carefully.
“She sent it,” he muttered, “and perhaps there is something written in it. She may have written, ‘I hope you will like this book, Henry;’ or, ‘This is the story we spoke of, Henry;’ or, ‘When will you be able to start to school again, Henry?’”
The observing reader will perceive that in each of those sentences the hero’s own name occurs. Henry was capable of strong feelings; in some respects he was a boy; in others, a man.
At last, at the top of a useless fly-leaf, he came upon two initial letters. They were not hers; they were not his. The writing was very bad; he could not recognize it. He did not consider that a book-seller often scrawls a cipher or two on the fly-leaves of his books. He was mystified.
Jealousy, however, soon suggested an explanation; jealousy pointed out that those characters were written by her, and that they stood for “J. J.”
Once more he was miserable.
He saw Johnny Jones in his true colors; saw all his defects, all his emptiness, all his insignificance, all his baseness. And yet he was jealous!
The lover very often feels his rival to be the most despicable person on the face of the earth; and yet, at the same instant, he fears that rival, despicable as he is, will steal away the heart of his beloved.
To a man whose thoughts never rise above the earth on which he walks, this may seem preposterous; but it is true, and may easily be explained—so easily, in fact, that the writer leaves it for some one who can do so more ably and clearly than himself.
It has been said that Henry was fated never to explore the Demon’s Cave. He never did.
The City Fathers, fearing, in their wisdom, that the cave might become the haunt of evil characters or the lair of some wild beast, convoked a council, and drew up a document which began and ended thus:
“Whereas, ...
“Resolved, that said cave be forthwith demolished.”
Then five men and two hundred and seventy-three or seventy-four boys fell to work upon it, and executed this command to the letter. The Demon’s Cave had served its purpose: it was no more.
The view from the opposite bank was marred; but the City Fathers knew that they had done their duty, and their conscience was easy.
After an absence of a week Uncle Dick returned to Mr. Mortimer’s. He had visited the little city; solved his mysteries; and been to see his brother.
He made himself comfortable in an easy chair, and while those interested in him listened attentively, he romanced as follows:—
“Several years ago, when I was still a young man, by prudent and lawful speculations I amassed a fortune. But I was not satisfied; I still wished for more; and one day when a stranger came to me with wonderful stories about making colossal fortunes in a far-off part of the world, I listened eagerly, and secretly resolved to settle my affairs and hasten away with him. I should need every dollar I possessed to embark in this scheme, the stranger told me; and the sooner I could get away, the sooner I should return to my native country a rich man.
“I kept my purpose hidden from my nearest friends, and got together all my money as secretly as possible. I was not to deposit this money in a bank, and draw it as I needed it; oh, no! I must pack it up snugly in a strong trunk, and take it all with me. This man, Black, advised me to ‘keep my own counsel to the very last;’ and I also knew that my people would oppose my taking up with an entire stranger, and embarking in such a wild-goose chase. Consequently he, and I, and the trunk of funds, stole away like criminals, leaving only a short note of farewell and explanation behind us. By the way, Mr. Mortimer, my brother tells me that he received no such note, and I must infer that Black found means to destroy it.
“I knew that I was acting dishonorably, but I excused my conduct to myself by thinking I should soon return in triumph, worth millions. At that date, enormous wealth was the summit of my ambitions; and it must come suddenly and easily; petty speculation had become tiresome to me, and I wished to wake up some morning and find myself a nabob.
“In a certain city—the place to which I went after leaving you—we halted, ‘to complete our arrangements,’ as my betrayer put it, if I remember rightly. Having entered a small and out-of-the-way building, which he called his own, probably correctly, I was assaulted by him and another villain who was unknown to me. I remember distinctly Black’s saying to this man, ‘Now, Bill, a heavy blow on his head, and he is dead. Then his trunk of money is ours!’ I started to my feet, but at that instant a furious blow was struck at my head, and I, poor fool, knew no more.
“My object in going to that city last week was to see whether I could learn what had happened to me from the time of that attempted murder till I appeared here as the ‘Demon of the Cave,’ In this I succeeded very well. It seems that the police were on these men’s track, and that they broke into the building just after I had been knocked down. The villains, Black and his accomplice, doubtless thought me dead, or else meant to deal another blow, but had not time. Their crime was bootless; for they were thrown into prison, tried in due time, and sent into penal servitude, where they are still.
“Then I was taken to an hospital; but as I had scarcely anything with me, except my clothes and my chest of money, no clue could be found to inform my friends of my whereabouts. So they kept me on there, within a few hundred miles of my home, and took the greatest care of me. The cruel blow on my head had taken away my reason, and all the doctors of the hospital could not restore it.
“What puzzles me is that my friends did not find me in process of time, as the whole affair was published in the newspapers. Well, I suppose they thought of me as being far away and that I could not possibly be the madman in K. Hospital. I never saw the account in the newspapers, and the description of the madman may not have tallied with the Uncle Dick of the country village.
“And now comes the most extraordinary part of my story. I was ill in the hospital for several weeks, and meanwhile the authorities took charge of my chest. It seems that I was aware my money was in it, and with all a maniac’s cunning I kept watch over it. One day, when my bodily health and strength were quite restored, both I and my chest of treasure were missing!
“So the story runs; but there I am bothered; there is mystery. From that day all is dark to me; all is a blank; and I can only speculate. I am left to suppose, then, that I made off with my chest of money; roamed over the country in search of a home; came upon the cave in this neighborhood; and established myself in it!
“Now, that is contrary to reason—in fact, it would require a powerful imagination to put any faith in such a cock-and-bull story.
“I have a notion that a great deal of my money was taken either by dishonest servants while in the hospital, or else by thieves after I left it; and I think even that I was robbed of the whole amount, and came upon some money in the cave. How could a lunatic make his way through the country with a chest of money, and not be molested? It is impossible. In fact, Mr. Mortimer, from the moment I left the hospital till I took up my abode in the cave, it is all a muddle to me. It may be explained some day; but it is all a muddle to me now.
“From inquiries I made in this place, I found that a dealer brought me supplies while I lived in the cave, and that I paid him for them. I hunted him out, and he told me he made my acquaintance through another man, when I first came here. He is a simple, honest, old man, incapable of cheating even a madman; and I am satisfied that he acted fairly with me, and had no hand in my coming to the cave.
“But who is the other? I believe the whole question hinges on that; and if we could meet with him, I would force the secret from him. The dealer affirms that he knows nothing about this man; he saw him only once; and then he told him (the dealer) to send supplies to an eccentric man who intended to live for a short time in what was then called simply, ‘The Cave.’ But, alas! it continued through ten years!
“While living in the cave, I am told that I was continually on the watch against robbers; which proves conclusively, I think, that people of that calling preyed upon me either before or after I left the hospital.
“Mr. Mortimer, as far as I can make it out, this is my story. It is not much, but I have made the best of it.” The next day Mr. Lawrence and his nephew set out for home. The long-lost man had, at length, after an absence of ten years, returned.
He lived with his brother, and for a few weeks, did nothing. Ten years in a cave had undermined his health, but as soon as his constitution regained its natural vigor, he went into business on his own account. At forty he found himself penniless, and obliged to begin life anew; ten years were as though they had not been, and he had summarily got rid of a fortune.