asked.
‘If I am not near the entrance, he will look here, where of course I should choose to wait.’
‘And what then?’
‘I presume he will help me to dissolve peacefully. He seemed certain that I should be alone.’
I had forgotten the puncture from the van seat. Naturally! By now I was equally sore all over. However, I felt quite capable of waiting for a far sorer Aviston-Tresco along the track. What good
it would do was more doubtful. According to Fosworthy, nobody committed himself to that labyrinth unless a companion was left at the top of the hatch.
Pulling Fosworthy by the hand, I felt my way out of the painted cave. It was the only time when he seemed reluctant to live. Perhaps the haunting influence of that calm mammoth overcame his
desire for Undine. We followed the wires some little way and then turned into a confused tumble of ledges and pinnacles just off the track. I had passed it three times and knew it would give cover
from any searching beam and from the passage lights. As for getting out again, one had simply to scramble downhill in any direction and follow the cave wall.
First of all we heard Aviston-Tresco’s voice.
‘Barnabas! My poor Barnabas! Where are you?’
It boomed and trilled and echoed and died away, once returning seconds later with a faint, uncanny ‘Barnabas!’
They passed the recess where we were. Jedder had a miner’s lamp on his forehead and carried a twelve-bore gun. Aviston-Tresco had one arm in a sling and a lantern in his free hand. They
were careless and confident, showing that Fosworthy was right and that they did not expect to have to deal with me.
They went on into the painted cave. If we had had any light, then was our chance to reach the entrance before they could. As it was, we were helpless. I was sure only of finding my way back to
the wired passage, and that might well have taken ten minutes of patient concentration.
So far as we could tell, they were now examining the blocked entrance where they must have been impressed by Fosworthy’s burrowings. Aviston-Tresco still was calling. The wail of his voice
through the black emptiness at last got on Fosworthy’s nerves. He jumped to his feet before I could stop him and shouted:
‘You can go to blazes, Tom! I’ll get out of here yet!’
He sounded like a cocky schoolboy. He really was the most contradictory man. A pity that he ever had a fixed income behind which he could retire! If he had been compelled to come to terms with
the world, he was as likely to have ended up as a mad mercenary in the Congo as a vegetarian in a country cottage.
They came running back, but it was impossible for them to fix the direction of the sound. I whispered to Fosworthy to lie still and shut up, reminding him of the gun under Jedder’s arm. He
apologised, far too loud, for forgetting his duty to protect me.
‘We had better have the lights on,’ Jedder said.
He had arranged a relay system for this. He walked round the next corner and yelled ‘Light!’ Far away I heard the call repeated. Then there was silence while some other helper
presumably shouted the message back. The lights came on.
The pair did not attempt to look for Fosworthy. From their point of view, he might be anywhere—the maze of rock where he actually was or in some cleft or above or below them—and half
a dozen strides would take him into darkness. Aviston-Tresco wanted, I believe, to avoid that, and was genuinely anxious that his former friend should dissolve without the long agony of starvation
and blindness.
‘There will be a meeting tonight, Barnabas,’ he said in a voice which would have been normal and inviting if the sinister echoes had not repeated it.
They retired slowly towards the changing-room, carrying out some perfunctory searches on the way to look for my dead or prostrated body. I suspected that Jedder was not quite convinced that
Aviston-Tresco had dealt with me successfully. He liked to have space and plenty of
‘If I am not near the entrance, he will look here, where of course I should choose to wait.’
‘And what then?’
‘I presume he will help me to dissolve peacefully. He seemed certain that I should be alone.’
I had forgotten the puncture from the van seat. Naturally! By now I was equally sore all over. However, I felt quite capable of waiting for a far sorer Aviston-Tresco along the track. What good
it would do was more doubtful. According to Fosworthy, nobody committed himself to that labyrinth unless a companion was left at the top of the hatch.
Pulling Fosworthy by the hand, I felt my way out of the painted cave. It was the only time when he seemed reluctant to live. Perhaps the haunting influence of that calm mammoth overcame his
desire for Undine. We followed the wires some little way and then turned into a confused tumble of ledges and pinnacles just off the track. I had passed it three times and knew it would give cover
from any searching beam and from the passage lights. As for getting out again, one had simply to scramble downhill in any direction and follow the cave wall.
First of all we heard Aviston-Tresco’s voice.
‘Barnabas! My poor Barnabas! Where are you?’
It boomed and trilled and echoed and died away, once returning seconds later with a faint, uncanny ‘Barnabas!’
They passed the recess where we were. Jedder had a miner’s lamp on his forehead and carried a twelve-bore gun. Aviston-Tresco had one arm in a sling and a lantern in his free hand. They
were careless and confident, showing that Fosworthy was right and that they did not expect to have to deal with me.
They went on into the painted cave. If we had had any light, then was our chance to reach the entrance before they could. As it was, we were helpless. I was sure only of finding my way back to
the wired passage, and that might well have taken ten minutes of patient concentration.
So far as we could tell, they were now examining the blocked entrance where they must have been impressed by Fosworthy’s burrowings. Aviston-Tresco still was calling. The wail of his voice
through the black emptiness at last got on Fosworthy’s nerves. He jumped to his feet before I could stop him and shouted:
‘You can go to blazes, Tom! I’ll get out of here yet!’
He sounded like a cocky schoolboy. He really was the most contradictory man. A pity that he ever had a fixed income behind which he could retire! If he had been compelled to come to terms with
the world, he was as likely to have ended up as a mad mercenary in the Congo as a vegetarian in a country cottage.
They came running back, but it was impossible for them to fix the direction of the sound. I whispered to Fosworthy to lie still and shut up, reminding him of the gun under Jedder’s arm. He
apologised, far too loud, for forgetting his duty to protect me.
‘We had better have the lights on,’ Jedder said.
He had arranged a relay system for this. He walked round the next corner and yelled ‘Light!’ Far away I heard the call repeated. Then there was silence while some other helper
presumably shouted the message back. The lights came on.
The pair did not attempt to look for Fosworthy. From their point of view, he might be anywhere—the maze of rock where he actually was or in some cleft or above or below them—and half
a dozen strides would take him into darkness. Aviston-Tresco wanted, I believe, to avoid that, and was genuinely anxious that his former friend should dissolve without the long agony of starvation
and blindness.
‘There will be a meeting tonight, Barnabas,’ he said in a voice which would have been normal and inviting if the sinister echoes had not repeated it.
They retired slowly towards the changing-room, carrying out some perfunctory searches on the way to look for my dead or prostrated body. I suspected that Jedder was not quite convinced that
Aviston-Tresco had dealt with me successfully. He liked to have space and plenty of
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