CHAPTER XIX.
INDIAN’S FIGHT FOR LIFE.
The feeling of horror which overwhelmed the helpless prisoners at that awful moment exceeds the possibility of description. They heard their comrade’s scream, and that told them that no accident had caused the shutting of the door. An enemy had done it! They were lost!
But terrible though their agony was, it was nothing to that of the unfortunate Indian. For Indian was alone in the cave with the frenzied maniac!
The timid lad had shrunk back in alarm before the hideous apparition with the upraised knife. Then he stood staring helplessly, trembling like a leaf. He was unarmed; flight was impossible.
What should he do?
The old man flung his weight against the door to make sure that it was really shut. And then he whirled furiously about and faced his one remaining victim. Revenge and fury gleamed in his eyes as he stared. And the knotted muscles stood out on his clinched and eager hands. There was to be a desperate battle in that dark and silent chamber.
Perhaps if the creature had made even one sound to show that he was human the lad might have suffered less concentrated terror. But the man was as silent as the tomb he dwelt in. No cat could have crept more stealthily than he did when he began to advance.
He was in no hurry to do that, no hurry to relieve the frightful strain upon his trembling victim’s mind. He crouched low and glared furiously, as if meanwhile calculating his next move. Then silently he put out one foot and stole forward.
Indian’s eyes were fixed upon him, as if held by some uncanny spell. As the man advanced Indian shrank back instinctively, his movement almost keeping time with the maniac, though his knees trembled so that he nearly fell to the floor.
The man crept forward again, one step; and again one step Indian shrank back. He was so stupefied with terror, poor lad, that he could not even think that such a method could not save him. The wall of the cave was behind him! One step must soon prove his last.
They say that when a man is drowning he lives his life in the seconds in which he dies. The whole past rushes up before him as if the Book of Life was held before him. Nothing like that happened in Indian’s case. He seemed to have but one thought; his fascinated gaze was fixed upon his steadily-advancing foe.
The old man was a terrible sight to look at. His fierce, exultant look of triumph made him doubly hideous, if such a thing could be. His bright eyes flashed and his teeth gleamed, as a savage tiger’s might. Set in the mass of clotted and tangled bloody hair it made a face that might well cause the bravest to tremble. And certainly our timid and helpless Joseph Smith shook with terror.
Indian had another thought to overcome him at that time of terror. Not only his own safety, but his friends’! All rested with him! He alone could help them. Loud sounds rang deafeningly in his ears from behind that iron door. Cries of terror, voices pleading for help, all, all of them shouting his name. And in front of him, between him and the door, was the advancing maniac and his ever-gleaming knife.
A wild and desperate thought flashed over the agonized lad. One dash for the door! He might succeed in turning the fatal knob before the knife struck. But as Indian looked the fierce old man seemed to comprehend his purpose. His knotted muscles settled into a firmer and more tense position, as if he were nerving himself to be ready to spring at the move. At the same time he crept on still faster, and poor Indian shrank back in dread.
Indian gazed about the cavern helplessly; his glance roamed over the floor and the walls, as if searching for something to aid him. But what could he hope to find? And then, suddenly, as his glance returned to the maniac, the lad sprang back with a shriek of terror.
The man had leaped forward!
Indian turned wildly as if to flee; he struck against a chair that lay in his path and then half instinctively he seized it, and as he felt his foe’s hot breath behind him, faced about and raised the slight weapon on high.
The old man made a savage spring and closed with his victim. The plebe brought the chair down with a desperate effort, all the strength that was in his body. A moment later he uttered a gasp of joy.
He had struck the descending knife. The shattered blade was falling to the ground!
But Indian’s triumph was for but a moment. With a hiss of rage, the savage creature leaped forward again. Indian turned once more and fled at the top of his speed.
An instant later he caught sight of a black tunnel looming up before him—the passageway that led out—to safety! to friends! With redoubled speed, the lad plunged in; he ran as never had he run before in his life. For behind him he heard the quick, pattering footsteps of his pursuer, and the panting breath.
It was a race for life, and it was short. Indian reached the end, flung himself against the rock that barred the entrance. And the next instant he felt a heavy body leap upon his back; felt two griping, clawlike fingers close upon his gasping throat. And then down he went, kicking, struggling, gasping, suffocating, then all grew dark before him.
A minute or two later the maniac crept softly out from the entrance of that black tunnel. There was yet a fiercer gleam of triumph in his eyes and he raised his clinched hands above him as if in frenzied joy.
Then he turned and shook them menacingly at the dungeon where the rest of his prey were lying.
What of them, meanwhile?
Nothing much, except that they were suffering agony that cannot be described—agony of dread, suspense, uncertainty. Everything was hidden from them. Who had shut them up? And what of Indian? His silence surely boded no good. And would they suffocate? Or starve? Or what on earth would happen next?
They stood and stared at one another in helpless dread; even the bold Texan was unnerved by his awful situation. They remembered that the Parson had said a man would suffocate in that vault in half an hour. Was that to be their fate, then? They waited, counting the seconds in dread.
But the fates had not, it seemed, meant them for so kindly a death as that. The air in the room did not grow close, though they waited and waited, wondering why it was. They realized at last. They had once dug several small holes in the top wall of masonry to further a practical joke of theirs. There was also a crack between the iron door and the bottom of the cave. The combination was all that saved the five captives from asphyxiation.
And yet that might have been better than what stared them in the face. They had no implement to pierce the wall. The floor of the cave was rock. The fiend who had shut them in would surely never let them out! And what then? Starvation!
Thinking over that horrible prospect a sudden idea flashed over Mark. It made his heart bound with sudden hope. The Parson!
“He may come in!” gasped Mark. “Heaven help us, we may be saved yet!”
If Mark had only been able to see the savage figure that was dancing like a caged hyena swiftly and silently up and down the shadowy cave he might have doubted his last living hope. At any rate, the crisis was soon to come.
The prisoners were lying on the ground, with staring eyes and ears intent, listening for the faintest sound. The dreadful pattering steps they heard plainly and wondered what they meant. A moment later came another sound.
“Hello! By Zeus, where are you and what are you doing?”
The footsteps ceased abruptly. It was the Parson at the entrance of the cave!
The shouts and yells that followed his voice must have scared the learned scholar out of his boots.
“Go back! Help! Help! Run and get somebody! Look out! Fly for your life! There’s somebody in the cave! Help!”
These and a thousand other warnings the agonized plebes were shrieking at the top of their lungs. Oh, so much depended on the Parson! If he, too, were overpowered! If he, too——
“Hurry back to camp!” roared Mark, at the top of his lungs. “Don’t lose a moment! Fly!”
“By Zeus!” gasped the astonished Parson. “By the nine immortals, the inhabitants of ’the many-peaked Olympus!’ By Apollo and Hercules and the followers of Neptune!”
“Run! Run! Run for your life! Don’t you hear me?”
“But wherefore should I run? By Zeus, this is altogether the most extraordinary condition of affairs that has ever come under my cognizance!”
By this time the prisoners were nearly hysterical.
“Run! Run!” they kept shrieking. “Don’t come inside!”
“But, by Zeus!” gasped the Parson, who it must be said was leaning halfway through the hole in the rock and peering into the darkness, listening to the medley of muffled voices in consternation. “But, by Zeus! why should I run? In the name of Pallas and her distaff, I demand——”
“There’s somebody in the cave! They’ve shut us in here! We’ll die! Oh, oh! And you’ll be killed!”
“By Zeus!”
“Run! Run! Get help! Don’t come in! Do you hear?”
By this time the puzzled scholar began to comprehend. His friends, and he, too, perhaps, were in peril. If he could have seen the horrible figure that had been stealing upon him with the stealth and swiftness of a panther he would have realized his danger, indeed.
“By Zeus!” he called. “I begin to perceive. Forsooth, I will immediately hie myself—— Good heavens!”
The maniac had made the fatal leap!