"I don"t think so very quick, missie, and they"ll be all safe on the island; they don"t come back ever till a good bit later than this. But I don"t like to think of them trying to get the heavy old boat home alone, with the wind blowing off sh.o.r.e like this. I don"t think as they could do it; and it might get blown out to sea, and they would be skeered like."

Esther was a little scared herself at the bare thought.

She turned things quickly over in her mind. She had to take command of the situation. Genefer was away for the afternoon. Cook was no good in an emergency, as she always lost her head; and it was one of Esther"s tenets that her mother must be spared all worry and anxiety.

Whatever was to be done she must do herself, and her thoughts flew instantly to Mr. Earle. He had become something like a real friend to the little girl during these past weeks. She was not without a certain timid fear of his cleverness, his stores of occult knowledge, and the things in which he took part up at the Crag, which made folks shake their heads sometimes, and say that they feared some hurt to somebody would be the result. Yet for all that Esther believed in him thoroughly, and felt that he was certain to go to the aid of the boys if he knew their predicament, and it must be her work to let him know as soon as possible.

She looked up at the threatening sky, but thunder and lightning did not frighten Esther much. She would have been glad of company through the dark pine wood, but she was not really afraid to go alone. She was more afraid of approaching the Crag at a time when it was popularly supposed that the master and his a.s.sistant were always engaged upon one of their uncanny experiments; but there seemed nothing else to be done, since the pony carriage had been already sent back by the boy in charge. After dismissing the woman with a small fee and a few words of thanks, Esther put on her hat once more and commenced the climb to the Crag.

She had got about half-way there when she uttered a little exclamation of joy, for there was Mr. Earle himself swinging away down the path as if to meet her.

She ran eagerly forward to meet him.

"O Mr. Earle, did they tell you too?"

"Tell me what?" he asked, stopping short and looking straight at her.

"What are you doing here all alone, with a storm coming up?"

"O Mr. Earle, it"s the boys. I"m afraid about them. I was coming to ask you what to do." And then she plunged into the story, and told him exactly what the old woman had told her.

Mr. Earle"s face looked a little grim as he heard, and his eyes scanned the clouds overhead and the aspect of things in general.

"Look here," he said to Esther in his clear, decisive way; "I"ll tell you what we must do. Leave me to see after the boys. I"ll go after them in the _Swan_; for they ought not to be alone any distance from land, with the wind getting up and blowing off sh.o.r.e. But if I do that for you, you must go up to the Crag for me with a message; and if the storm breaks, or looks very like breaking, you must stop up there till it"s over. I"ll leave word as I pa.s.s your house where you are, so that n.o.body will be uneasy about you."

Esther shook a little at the thought of going alone to the Crag, but she never thought of shirking.

"What is the message?" she asked.

"It"s like this," said Mr. Earle, speaking rapidly and clearly: "Mr.

Trelawny and I are at a stand-still in some of our experiments for a certain chemical, which has been on order from London for some time. We think the carrier may have brought it to-day, and I"m on my way to the little shop to see if it"s been left. Mr. Trelawny is waiting for me in some impatience. You must take word that I shall probably be detained, and that I want him not to go on any farther till I come back. You can remember that, can"t you? You had better send Merriman to fetch him to come and see you; then you can explain all about it, and if you have once got him safe out of the laboratory, you keep him out. I don"t want him to go on experimenting without me. It wants two for that sort of thing. Do you understand?"

"Yes," answered Esther, and then the pair parted. Mr. Earle went swinging down the path which pa.s.sed the Hermitage and led to the village where the carrier"s cart deposited parcels; and Esther, with a very grave face, went slowly upwards towards the house upon the crag.

She was glad to think she need not seek Mr. Trelawny himself amid his crucibles and retorts and strange apparatus; but she was a little afraid at having to face him all alone, although she had been trying hard to conquer her fears of him, and she had to own that he was always especially kind to her.

She could not walk very fast here, for the ground was steep, and she had tired her limbs by hurrying along the first part of the way. The air seemed very hot and close about her, and she felt the sort of ache in her head which thunder often brought.

All of a sudden she gave a little jump, and stopped short, for she saw a strange thing just in front of her--a little spiral of sulphurous smoke, curling upwards from the ground, very much as she had read that it did when volcanoes were going to have an eruption; and she very nearly forgot everything else, and turned to run away, when her steps were arrested by something even more alarming--the distinct sound of a groan, proceeding, as it seemed, from the very heart of the earth.

Esther"s feet seemed rooted to the spot. She could not run away now; she had not the power. Meantime her wits were hard at work, and in a few moments she realized that she was close to the hole which the boys called the chimney of the underground cave, and the smoke she saw was coming up from that place, whilst the groan must surely have been uttered by some person down there.

All the old terror of that subterranean cave came like a flood over Esther--all the talk of the boys about prisoners and victims, and her own vague and fearful imaginings of the horrors of such places. She was shaking all over, and beads of moisture stood upon her brow. Reason for the moment had taken wing, and it seemed to Esther as though she had suddenly come upon some fearful mystery of human suffering.

There was some wretched human being in that cave, groaning in pain--bound, perhaps, in fetters, and awaiting some terrible doom. Could she leave him like that? Having made this discovery, ought she not to pursue it farther? Her heart beat to suffocation at the bare thought, but she fought fiercely with her fears. Had she not resolved to overcome them? And how could she leave this poor creature without seeking to do something?

With failing limbs she crept towards the mouth of the shaft. She had looked down it many times before this, when the boys had been with her.

But then there had been no smoke curling out of it, and no blood-curdling sounds coming up.

She could not put her head right over it to-day, for the smoke choked her and made her cough; and immediately there seemed to come from below a sort of m.u.f.fled cry.

Esther caught her breath and called back,--

"Is there anybody down there?"

"Yes; come to me! Help!" spoke the voice, which sounded from the very depths of the earth. And Esther"s resolve was taken.

She must go. She must go herself, and at once. To summon help from the Crag might be worse than useless. This miserable victim was probably imprisoned there by the master of that place. Esther"s mind had gone back for the moment to its old standpoint, and Mr. Trelawny was the terrible magician, whose doings were so full of mystery if not of iniquity. If any captive were there, he had placed him in that terrible prison. His servants were probably in collusion with their master. If anything could be done, it must be done quickly and by herself alone.

"I"m coming!" she cried down the mouth of the shaft, and then set off to run for the door in the hillside, the position of which she knew perfectly by this time.

The boys had often shown it to her, and had shown her the trick of opening it. But they had never gone in. Mr. Trelawny had forbidden them to do so, knowing their mischievous tendencies. Esther had the free right of entrance, but she would sooner have put her head into a lion"s mouth than have exercised it. She had never been in since that first day when she had had to be carried out by Mr. Trelawny. She had hoped never to have to enter the fearful place again.

But she must to-day, she plainly must, though her knees were quaking at the bare thought.

She had had one or two talks with Mr. Earle about fear of the dark and how to conquer it. Esther was not afraid of the dark in the ordinary sense of the word. She was not afraid of going about in the dark in her own home; for she had tried that, and only now and then, when in a nervous mood, had felt any fear. But she knew that she could not bear strange underground dark places, and she had once asked Mr. Earle if he thought she ought to go there to get used to them. But he had looked at her for a few moments, and had then said,--

"No, I do not think so--not unless there were some object to be gained by it. There are many people in the world who dislike underground places, and avoid them. As a rule there is no call for them to conquer the dislike. Of course, if one could do any good by going, if there were some sufficient reason for it--if it were to help somebody else, for instance--then it would be right to try and overcome one"s repugnance.

But without some such motive, I do not see that any one would be greatly benefited by going into uncongenial places of the kind."

Esther thought of all this as she ran along. Hitherto it had been a comfort to her to think of this decision. But now it seemed to her that the time had come when she was bound to go. Somebody wanted help. There was n.o.body but herself to give it. She might not be able to accomplish much, but at least she ought to go and see. To turn and run away would be like the priest and Levite in the parable, who left the poor man wounded and half dead. Everybody knew that they were wicked. She must try and copy the good Samaritan, who, she knew, was the type of Jesus Himself.

That thought came to her like a ray of comfort, and it helped to drive back the flood of her fears. Then she remembered what Mr. Earle had said about what his mother told him to do; and, just as she reached the strange old door in the hillside, Esther dropped upon her knees and buried her face in her hands.

It was only for a few seconds, but when she got up again she felt that she could go into the cave. A few minutes before, it had seemed as if it were almost impossible.

The heavy door yielded to her touch. She knew it would swing back again when she let it go, so she took a big stone with her and set it wide open. There would be comfort in the feeling that there was light and air behind her, though the cave looked fearfully dark and gloomy, and the strange smell inside it, as she went slowly forward, brought back some of the dizzy feeling she had experienced upon her first visit.

A heavy groan smote upon her ears, and she gave a start and clasped her hands tightly together. She was through the pa.s.sage now, and could just see the outline of the great dim cave. But where the living thing was that was making these sounds she could not guess. She stood quite still, and called timidly,--

"Is anybody there?"

"Yes, child," answered a voice which she knew, now that she heard it more plainly. "Come a little nearer. I can"t see you. I"m afraid I"ve been an old fool; and if I haven"t blinded myself, I shall have better luck than I deserve."

Esther sprang forward with a little cry of relief. It was no chained captive, no unknown, mysterious prisoner. It was Mr. Trelawny himself, and he was hurt.

In a moment she was by his side, bending over him, seeing a very blackened face and a brow drawn with pain. Mr. Trelawny was half sitting, half lying upon the cold floor of the cave, and there was a lot of broken gla.s.s all about him. So much she could see, and not much beside.

"O Uncle Robert, I am so sorry! What can I do?"

"Isn"t there a lot of gla.s.s about?"

"Yes."

"Well, there is a broom somewhere about. Get it and sweep it away, and I"ll try to get up. Every time I"ve tried to move I"ve got my hands cut.

I can"t see a thing, and I"ve little power to help myself."

Esther forgot all about being afraid now that there was something to do.

She found the broom, and was soon sweeping away like a little housemaid.

Now and then a groan broke from Mr. Trelawny, and at last she said gently,--