Buffalo Bill's death message or, In the face of doom
close at hand, and the dark walls and roof of the singular natural
tunnel stretched in each direction as far as eye could see.
“We could live here some time,” said the scout cheerfully. “We’ve got
stores enough, and we have the whole river for our water supply.”
“But dey’s bats and fings in here, Marse Cody!” the darky objected. “I
hear um go flyin’ by.”
Yet Cudjo was in no haste to leave the island and trust his precious
self to that wild black torrent.
When they had patched the canoe they again sat on the rocks and talked
over the situation.
“It will soon be dark outside,” said the scout, holding his watch so
that the candlelight fell on the dial. “Shall we try it before morning?”
Cudjo declared his desire to wait for daylight outside.
“I think, myself, it will be better,” the scout urged, when Flynn did
not express his opinion. “With daylight, we could see when we approached
the end of this stream, where it flows out of the tunnel. For I’m taking
it for granted that it flows out somewhere. And, also, it seems to me
that the light from the outside may get in here to a certain extent, and
so that would help us. We can set candles in the prow of the canoe; but
if we could have a few rays of daylight additional it would be welcome.”
So they decided to remain in their present position until the scout’s
watch showed that morning had come.
---------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VI.
ON THE UNDERGROUND RIVER.
Though there was a good deal of misty vapor in the tunnel, it was
possible to keep reasonably dry and comfortable by wrapping in the
blankets taken from the canoe.
A generous supper, taken from the canoe supplies, helped much to add to
the cheerfulness which the scout’s hopeful manner created.
Flynn lighted his pipe when supper was over, and sat on the rocks,
smoking and talking of the outlook.
“Begorra, the drainage is good, f’r wan thing!” he declared, as he saw
Cudjo heave some of the supper remnants into the river. “A felly might
shtay here a good while, though the mist would damage his health, I’m
thinkin’. There’s many a worse place in the world, no doubt. Shtill, I’m
not wantin’ to shtay longer than I nade to.”
“I doan’ want tuh stay at all,” said Cudjo. “Marse Cody, didn’t you heah
somepin’?”
“I heard nothing,” the scout answered. “If you’ll lie down, Cudjo, and
get some rest and sleep, you’ll feel better. Wrap up in that blanket and
lie down a while.”
“Dis river make so much noise I couldn’t sleep a wink, Marse Cody!”
Cudjo declared. “And I keeps hearin’ fings. You doan’ heah um?”
“I hear nothing but the roar of the river.”
“’Twas a kind ob low moanin’ like, Marse Cody. Dar it is ag’in. An’ I
heah’s somepin’ breathin’ hard, too.”
Cudjo got up and walked uneasily to and fro. At last he sat down on a
log by the shore. That is, he thought it was a log when he sat down on
it; but he knew better soon, for what he supposed to be a log, taking no
notice of him at first, began by and by to squirm under him. He sprang
to his feet with a howl that would have done credit to an Indian.
“Marse Cody!” he screeched, “dis heah log is alive! Befo’ the Lawd it
is! Yah! Hit’s movin’.”
Buffalo Bill and Mickey Flynn ran to him, and then they beheld an
astonishing thing.
A long, dark object, which in the poor light they had from the first
fancied was a wet log, had moved from its bed and was crawling slowly
into the water.
Cudjo had jumped back, and was screeching again.
“You see it, Marse Cody?” he yelled. “You see it?”
Buffalo Bill ran back for the candle, and, bringing it up, flashed its
light down on the moving “log.”
“An alligator!” he exclaimed, holding the light close to the creature’s
back. “No, not an alligator,” he corrected, “though it resembles one.
What is it?”
The lizardlike thing drew its length lazily into the water, where it
sank out of sight without a sound, although they were given time to see
it.
It was not an alligator, though it certainly was a saurian. It resembled
an alligator, or crocodile, but was more sluggish, had a larger head,
and a thicker, shorter body.
Cudjo’s panicky fright was too pitiable to be laughed at. He was almost
in a state of collapse.
“Dat’s de fing I heard breathin’,” he declared. “Hit must er been. And
to fink dat I set down on it! Dat sho’ does analyze me! I’se dat trimbly
and skeered dat I cain’t move. Marse Cody, does ye’ reckon any more ob
um is roun’ heah?”
That he might be sure there were not, Buffalo Bill began to look over
the island with the aid of the candle. Flynn accompanied him, but Cudjo
remained behind, keeping now near the very top of the rocky islet, that
he might be as far as possible from the water.
“Begorra, there’s another wan av the bloody crathers!” declared Flynn.
But this was only a log, slimy and wet, looking, in the faint light,
much like the strange saurian sat on by the negro.
“There are no more here,” said the scout, when he and Flynn had made
their circle of the island.
“You bet I stays awake dis night!” said Cudjo. “Dat was an alligator,
and an alligator sho’ does love nigger meat. Yo’ couldn’t make me lay
down ag’in if you was to hit me wid a club. No, sir! I keeps my eyes
open dis night. None of dem fings ain’t gwine to swaller me while I’m
sleepin’.”
While they were talking they heard a roar down the river—a singular
sound, mingling with the noise of the stream. They did not doubt it was
made by the saurian, which they believed had gone in that direction.
Though Buffalo Bill did not blame Cudjo for having been frightened by
his unpleasant experience, he tried to argue him into a quieter frame of
mind, and again advised him to lie down and try to get some rest,
assuring him that the “alligator” would not return. But Cudjo sat up,
refusing to trust himself in the blanket.
Buffalo Bill and Flynn talked, while Flynn smoked pipeful after pipeful
of tobacco.
The scout lay down at last, when his watch showed that the time was
after midnight. Then Flynn rolled in his blanket, and Cudjo, fearing to
stare longer out into the darkness, also wrapped himself up, and tried
to get some rest, if not some sleep.
All slept soundly before morning.
When they woke the darkness still held, though the scout fancied it was
not as dense. His watch showed him that it was seven o’clock.
They had breakfast from the boat’s stores, and again Flynn smoked his
pipe, while they talked of what they should now do.
Then the canoe was loaded again, and they took their places in it, and
floated off from the island, trusting themselves once more to the swift
stream. It was the only thing they could do.
A number of candles threw their light on the water, enabling the scout,
who sat in the prow, to see obstructions.
With the deafening roar of the river about them, the canoe plunging on,
and uncertainty ahead, that was not a pleasant voyage. How long it
continued they hardly knew.
More than once, by a deft stroke of his paddle, Buffalo Bill saved the
frail craft from destruction.
The light of the candles showed only seamed, black walls, where the mist
of the river had collected and hung in glistening drops, which resembled
flashing diamonds as the light of the candles touched them. The river
looked as black as the walls.
After a while Buffalo Bill became sure that the daylight was brightening
in the tunnel. That he might be sure of this, after speaking of it to
his companions, he swept the candles into a heap in the bottom of the
canoe, extinguishing them.
For a little while the darkness seemed to have been made pitchy black,
but it was only by reason of the contrast. Soon it became clear that the
dark tunnel was really growing brighter ahead.
“Hooray!” Flynn yelled, unable to restrain his joy. “I’d welcome light
ahead there av it was fr’m the fires of the pit. Whoosh! But we’re fair
flyin’.”
They could again see the walls flying past them, showing the speed with
which the canoe was going.
The current was nearly free of rocks, and it was not difficult work to
keep the canoe away from the walls, so that this terrific speed really
harmed nothing now.
Brighter and still brighter grew the light within the tunnel.
The brightness came from ahead, showing that some sort of opening was
there which let in the sunlight.
Cudjo forgot his fears, and clamored for the canoe to go faster, when it
seemed already that it was almost flying.
Then a white point, like a star, shone dead ahead.
“The opening!” shouted Buffalo Bill. “There it is!”
Cudjo chattered his joy, and the Irishman’s lips shot out wild
exclamations.
Steadily that starlike point of light gained in size, and the brightness
of the tunnel increased. Then they could see that the “star” was a hole
through which light came.
“Kape her goin’!” yelled Flynn, sweeping the canoe on with his paddle.
“Kape her goin’!”
The shining aperture enlarged rapidly, and soon the canoe was right in
it, and a blinding flash of daylight was just before. Then the canoe
shot out of the tunnel’s black mouth, and sped along the surface of a
stream that rolled between rocky and sandy banks. Behind towered the
high walls of mountains, steep as upright boards, reaching apparently to
the sky.
“We’ve passed through the walls,” said the scout, “and are in the
Golconda Cup.”
“And that letther wasn’t a lie at all, at all!” said Flynn. “Glory be!
It’s praisin’ the saints I am f’r this blissed minute.”
As they floated on they saw that they were in a vast valley, encircled
by precipitous mountain walls, and that the river flowed through it.
They were in the Golconda Cup, which it was said no man had ever
entered.
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CHAPTER VII.
SKULL AND CROSSBONES.
The current decreased when they entered this wide valley. The cañon had
disappeared beyond the tunnel, and here were only broken hills and sandy
river banks inclosing the stream. At points along the stream were trees
and bushes.
When they were nearly a mile out from the tunnel, and the current had
dropped to no more than seven or eight miles an hour, they beheld in
front of them a low, bush-grown island. Then, looking off to the right,
where the stream made a bend beyond the island, they were astonished to
behold houses amid the trees on the river bank. They seemed to be large
cabins, and their presence denoted human occupancy.
“That letther wasn’t a lie at all!” Flynn repeated, when he saw those
houses.
“And if what it said is true, that Red Reynard is in here with a lot of
his villains, we’ll be a good deal better off if they don’t see us,” the
scout remarked, as he turned the prow of the canoe toward the shore,
which presented a sandy bluff at that point.
“We’ll get under that bluff,” he said, “where we’re not so likely to be
sighted by whoever occupies those cabins, and then, I think, we’d better
try to land on that island, and go into hiding there until we see who is
in this valley.”
The eyes of Cudjo were round and staring. When he turned them from the
cabins to the surface of the river he uttered an ejaculation of fear.
“Marse Cody, dar it is!” he said in a whisper. “Dar’s dat alligator. He
riz right plum’ up f’um de bottom of de river. Yo’ see ’im, doan’ you?”
They could not but see the scaly saurian, as it floated on the surface
of the water. Apparently, it had not seen them. At the small bend just
below the saurian turned across the stream, heading as if for the
island.
“Hit look des lack it’s leadin’ de way, and sayin’ for us to come on!”
whispered Cudjo, his eyes staring. “Marse Cody, I doan’ lack de