CHAPTER XXVII.
ALL HOPE VANISHES.
"We are approaching the outlet of the lake, Sir Arthur," said Guy. "It is better that all should be awake in case we encounter bad water."
"Yes, yes; very true. You want me to hold the torch, I suppose. Gad!
what a dream I had! I was dining with Lord Balsover. I'd give my title and fortune to be back in London this minute."
"Hold your torch straight," said the colonel dryly, and then under the regular strokes of four paddles the canoe moved swiftly toward the distant sound of running water.
Every instant it grew louder and more distinct, and soon their voices were almost drowned in the roar.
It was a period of terrible anxiety. That it was the outlet of the lake they were approaching no one for an instant doubted. Their chief concern was for a safe passage into the river beyond, for the angry splash of the water told plainly its turbulent and dangerous nature.
"Keep a little off from the shore," cried Guy. "It won't do to make too sharp a curve or we shall upset. We must strike the current fairly in the center and keep the canoe straight as an arrow. Whatever happens, don't drop the torch," he added warningly.
Close as they now were to the outlet, no signs of any current were yet visible. The colonel called attention to this strange fact, but Guy explained it by remarking that the current probably passed directly through the center of the lake and that dead water continued to the very edge.
"I can see a white gleam ahead," he cried suddenly; "now paddle off from shore a little more and head the canoe as I tell you."
His orders were obeyed in silence. Straight out from the shore the canoe shot deftly. A couple of quick strokes forward and backward and its bow faced the angry waters that raged and foamed thirty yards distant.
The radius of the torch cast a faint gleam on the very edge of the glistening spray. It seemed to beckon them onward.
"Now give way," cried Guy. Four paddles dipped and rose as one, the shining drops rolled from their blades like so many diamonds in the torch-glare, and then Guy sprang to his feet with a loud cry.
The paddles wavered in mid-air. "Go ahead," he shouted fiercely. "Paddle with all your strength."
Once more they dipped the water, the canoe moved slowly--with an effort, and as the paddles a second time paused in air, the canoe shot swiftly--not forward to the embrace of the angry waters, but back--_back at dizzy speed into the dark and dismal recesses of the lake_.
Even then the awful, unspeakable horror of the situation never flashed upon them, Guy alone perhaps excepted.
"We've blundered again," cried the colonel in hollow tones. "We have returned to the starting point. In some manner we have missed the outlet, and now all must be done over again."
"Could the canoe have been turned completely about during our journey?"
exclaimed Forbes.
"Impossible," said the colonel. "I can prove it instantly. When we started away from the spot where the river enters on our trip around the lake, the shore was on our right. When we arrived here just now it was still on our right, whereas, had we unconsciously turned the canoe about and reversed our course, the shore would be on our left. We have circumnavigated the lake and returned to our starting point, and in some way missed the outlet."
"No," cried Chutney in tones that chilled his hearers with horror. "We did not miss the outlet."
"What do you mean?" cried the colonel.
"I say we did not miss the outlet," continued Guy, "because there was no outlet to miss. No exit from the lake exists. We are entombed forever and ever. None of us will ever see the light of day again. We shall die here in the bowels of the earth, and the serpents will mangle us as they mangled those poor unfortunates yonder on the island. Better to know the truth now than later. It is useless to hope. I tell you we are doomed men and----"
Here Guy's voice faltered, and sinking down into the canoe, he covered his face with his hands.
Sir Arthur uttered a heartrending cry and fell back in a faint. He lay unnoticed. The torch dropped from the Greek's nerveless hands and expired with a hiss. In darkness and silence they floated on and on until the roar of the inflowing water became fainter and fainter. Then it died out entirely and all was intensely quiet.
The darkness was grateful to their stricken hearts. They wanted time to realize the awful misfortune that had fallen so suddenly and heavily upon them.
It was impossible to grasp the truth in a moment, especially when that truth meant utter hopelessness and a terrible death. So they drifted in silence under the great vault of the cavern, living-dead in a living tomb.
Long afterward--it might have been an hour and it might have been a day, for all passage of time was lost--Chutney rose to a sitting posture.
His brain was dizzy and reeling. The aching misery lay heavy on his heart, and yet one faint spark of hope lingered amid the black despair, the natural buoyancy of his nature that refused even to submit to the decrees of the inevitable.
It was he who had first spoken the words of doom to his companions, and now he told himself he would show them the way to safety. He fumbled in his clothes for a match, and striking it deliberately, lit a fresh torch.
The pale, haggard faces that looked into each other as the bright light shone over the water were ghastly and unnatural. Abject misery and hopelessness were stamped on each one.
The colonel and Forbes faced Guy calmly. Canaris looked up with a shudder and then dropped his head again. Sir Arthur lay among the rugs as though asleep.
At that instant the canoe struck some obstacle with a slight tremor and stopped.
The colonel with a slight gesture pointed to the right, and there before them lay the _Isle of Skeletons_. A strange fatality had drifted them a second time to this awful spot.
Guy shuddered, but the colonel rose, and brushing past him stepped on shore.
Forbes followed him in silence, and then Canaris staggered blindly past.
After a brief hesitation Guy stepped out, and dragged the canoe half way up the sand. Sir Arthur never moved. He was sleeping and no one dared disturb him. They sat down in a row on the sand.
"It's as good a place as any to die," said Forbes hoarsely. "The bones will soon have company."
He paused, frightened at his own voice, and no one replied. For a while they sat in silence.
Guy stuck the torch in the sand and it blazed away with a merry light.
Somehow or other the ray of hope that had animated him a little while before had vanished, leaving only a dull despair, a reluctance to face the horror of the situation.
"Is there no--no chance--for us?" he ventured to say timidly.
"Absolutely none," replied the colonel, in a firm voice. "You told us a while ago, Chutney, that our doom was sealed. I have faced the situation as calmly and clearly as possible from every conceivable aspect, and I now tell you on my own responsibility that we will never leave this cavern. The fatal error was made when we took the right-hand channel of the two, or rather when the current led us to the right. That was not our blunder, of course. We were in the hands of destiny. We are now, as you know, on the bosom of a vast lake. Water of an unknown depth is beneath us. Overhead is a vaulted dome of great height, probably the hollowed interior of a mountain; on all sides are massive and perpendicular walls of rock, impregnable and insurmountable.
"The lake is undoubtedly ten miles or more in circumference, and, as you know well, there is no surface outlet. There is an entrance, but we can no more force our way back through that entrance than we could swim up through the Falls of Niagara or ride the Nile Cataracts in a Rob Roy canoe. As long as our provisions last we shall live. When we no longer have anything to eat we shall die, and the next explorer who enters this lake will find our bones mingled with those lying behind us."
"And what will _he_ do?" asked Guy.
"Perish like those before him," said the colonel. "This death trap caught many a victim and will catch many more. The light of day will never pierce this gloom."
The colonel spoke as though he were demonstrating a problem in Euclid or laying down plans for a campaign.
"I don't call myself a philosopher," he went on, "nor am I a fatalist, but I think that most men can face the inevitable with a certain calmness that is only born of absolute despair. Did you ever see a man hanged? I did once. He walked to the gallows as coolly and deliberately as though he were going to breakfast. A week before he had been defiant, blustering, terror-stricken. When he realized that he had absolutely no loophole of escape, he faced the inevitable with steady nerves. When you realize your position fully, you will be like that man.
You will accept your fate."