"Where are you!" cried the voice above Humphrey; but still he could not reply. His hands were giving way, and he felt that his whole energy must be devoted to the one effort of clinging to the last ere he was plunged down into that awful gulf.
But the man who clung to him heard the hoarsely-whispered question, and broke out into a wild series of appeals for help--for mercy--for pity.
"For God's sake, captain!" he yelled, "save me--save me! It was Black Mazzard! He made me come! Do you hear! Help! I can't hold no longer!
I'm falling! Help! Curse you--help!"
As these cries thrilled him through and through, Humphrey was conscious in the darkness that the hands he heard rustling above him and dislodging stones, every fall of which brought forth a shriek from the wretch below, suddenly touched his, and then, as if spasmodically, leaped to his wrists, round which they fastened with a grip like steel.
To Humphrey Armstrong it was all now like one hideous nightmare, during which he suffered, but could do nothing to free himself. The wretch's shrieks were growing fainter, and he clung in an inert way now, while someone seemed to be muttering above--
"I can do nothing more--I can do nothing more!" but the grip about Humphrey's wrists tightened, and two arms rested upon his hands and seemed to press them closer to the stones to which they clung.
"Captain--captain! Are you there?"
"Yes," came from close to Humphrey's face.
"Forgive me, skipper, and help me up! I'll be faithful to you! I'll kill Black Mazzard!"
"I can do nothing," said the buccaneer, hoarsely. "You are beyond my reach."
"Then go and fetch the lads and a rope. Don't let me fall into this cursed, watery hell!"
"If I quit my hold here, man, you will both go down; unless help comes, nothing can be done."
"Then, call help! Call help now, captain, and I'll be your slave!
Curse him for leaving me here! Where's Joe Thorpe?"
"He was killed by Mazzard with a blow meant for me," said the buccaneer, slowly.
"Curse him! Curse him!" shrieked the man. "Oh, captain, save me, and I'll kill him for you! He wants to be skipper; and I'll kill him for you if you'll only--Ah!"
He uttered a despairing shriek, for as he spoke a sharp tearing sound was heard; the cloth he clung to gave way, and before he could get a fresh hold he was hanging suspended by the half-torn-off garb. He swung to and fro as he uttered one cry, and then there was an awful silence, followed by a plunge far below.
The water seemed to hiss and whisper and echo in all directions, and the silence, for what seemed quite a long space, was awful. It was, however, but a few instants, and then there was a terrific splashing as if a number of horrible creatures had rushed to prey upon the fallen man, whose shrieks for help began once more.
Appeals, curses, yells, piteous wails, followed each other in rapid succession as the water was beaten heavily. Then the cries were smothered, there was a gurgling sound, and the water whispered and lapped and echoed as it seemed to play against the stony walls of the place.
A few moments and the cries recommenced, and between every cry there was the hoarse panting of a swimmer fighting hard for his life as he struck out.
The buccaneer's eyes stared wildly down into the great cenote, or water-tank, whose vast proportions were hidden in the gloom. He could see nothing; but his imagination supplied the vacancy, and pictured before him the head and shoulders of his treacherous follower as he swam along the sides of the great gulf, striving to find a place to climb up; and this he did, for the hoarse panting and the cries ceased, and from the dripping and splashing it was evident that he had found some inequality in the wall, by means of which he climbed, with the water streaming from him.
The task was laborious, but he drew himself up and up, climbing slowly, and then he suddenly ceased, uttered a terrible cry, and once more there was a splash, the lapping and whispering of the water, and silence.
He was at the surface again, swimming hard in the darkness and striving once more to reach the place where he had climbed; but in the darkness he swam in quite a different direction, and his hoarse panting rose again, quick and agitated now, the strokes were taken more rapidly, and like a rat drowning in a tub of water, the miserable wretch toiled on, swimming more and more rapidly and clutching at the wall.
Once an inequality gave him a few moments' rest, and he clung desperately, uttering the most harrowing cries, but only to fall back with a heavy splash. Then he was up once more fighting for life, and the vast tank echoed with his gurgling appeals for help.
Again they were silenced, and the water whispered and lapped and echoed.
There was a splash, a hoarse gurgle, a beating of the water as a dog beats it before it sinks.
Again silence and the whispering and lapping against the sides more faint; then a gurgling sound, the water beat once or twice, a fainter echo or two, and then what sounded like a sigh of relief, and a silence that was indeed the silence of death.
Suddenly the silence in that darkness was broken, for a hoarse voice said--
"Climb up!"
"Climb!" exclaimed Humphrey, who seemed to have recovered his voice, while his frozen energies appeared to expand.
"Yes. Climb. I can hold you thus, but no more. Try and obtain a foothold."
Humphrey obeyed as one obeys who feels a stronger will acting upon him.
"Can you keep my hands fast?" he said. "They are numbed."
"Yes. You shall not slip now. Climb!"
Humphrey obeyed, and placed his feet upon a projection; but it gave way, and a great stone forced from the wall by his weight fell down with a splash which roused the echoes once more.
Humphrey felt half-paralysed again; but the voice above was once more raised.
"Now," it said, "there must be foothold in that spot where the stone fell. Try."
The young officer obeyed, and rousing himself for a supreme effort as his last before complete inaction set in, he strove hard. The hands seemed like steel bands about his wrists, and his struggle sent the blood coursing once more through his nerveless arms. Then, with a perfect avalanche of stones falling from the crumbling side, he strove and strained, and, how he knew not, found foothold, drew himself up, and half crawling, half dragged by the buccaneer as he backed up the slope, reached the level part of the passage between the entrance and the doorway of the inner temple, where he subsided on the stones, panting, exhausted, and with an icy feeling running through his nerves.
"Commodore Junk," he whispered hoarsely as he lay in the semi-darkness, "you have saved my life."
"As you saved mine."
Those two lay there in the gloomy passage listening to the solemn whisperings and lappings of the water, which seemed to be continued for an almost interminable time before they died out, and once more all was silent. But the expectancy remained. It seemed to both that at any moment the miserable would-be assassin might rise to the surface and shriek for help, or that perhaps he was still above water, clinging to the side of the cenote, paralysed with fear, and that as soon as he recovered himself he would make the hideous gulf echo with his appeals.
By degrees, though, as the heavy laboured panting of their breasts ceased, and their hearts ceased beating so tumultuously, a more matter-of-fact way of looking at their position came over them.
"Try if you can walk now," said the buccaneer in a low voice. "You will be better in your own place."
"Yes--soon," replied Humphrey, abruptly; and once more there was silence, a silence broken at last by the buccaneer.
"Captain Armstrong," he said softly, at last, "surely we can now be friends!"
"Friends? No! Why can we?" cried Humphrey, angrily.
"Because I claim your life, the life that I saved, as mine--because I owe you mine!"
"No, no! I tell you it is impossible! Enemies, sir, enemies to the bitter end. You forget why I came out here!"
"No," said the buccaneer, sadly. "You came to take my life--to destroy my people--but Fate said otherwise, and you became my prisoner--your life forfeited to me!"
"A life you dare not take!" cried Humphrey, sternly. "I am one of the king's officers--your king's men."