CHAPTER XXX. IN FRESH TERROR.

Herc landed with a crash on something soft and yielding. For an instant or two he actually found himself wondering if he had been killed, but as soon as his rudely jolted senses reasserted themselves he found that, thanks to the soft substance he had landed upon, he was not even sprained.

"Well, here's a nice kettle of fish!" exclaimed Herc to himself, rubbing his head ruefully. "I'm a whole lot worse off now than I was before."

He sat up and tried to collect his thoughts. A moment's reflection placed him pretty well in possession of the facts as they were. He had been dashing at top speed down the dark passage when he suddenly found himself precipitated into space. There had been no trap-door or opening[Pg 238] in the passage when he came down it before, of that he was certain; therefore it was plain that some sort of device must have been operated to open a pitfall under his feet and prevent his escape.

"The question now is, though, where am I?" mused Herc.

All about him was velvety blackness, so dark that it could almost be felt. The air was filled with an odd kind of musty odor, a damp reek as of some place infested with fungus growth and unclean things.

"Some sort of a cellar," thought the lad, "and it's not likely there's any way out of it but the way I came. There might be a ladder there, of course, but I didn't notice it as I came down. Ouch! what a bump! I'm lucky it didn't break every bone in my body."

Herc felt in his pockets for his matchbox. Having found it, he struck a lucifer. By its light[Pg 239] he made a brief but comprehensive survey of his surroundings.

He had fallen on a rotting pile of what appeared to be old sails, or canvas from which sails were made. From this he judged that the structure above him must have been at some time occupied by sail-makers, and that this cellar had formed a sort of rubbish heap for the refuse of the place.

For the rest, the lighting of another match showed him that the cellar was about eighty feet square and evidently extended under the whole of the house above. There was no means of egress, and he could not even see the trap-door above him through which he had made such a hasty entrance into the place.

The walls were smooth, and made of some sort of cement. There was no hope of scaling them, even had there been anything to gain by such a proceeding. So far as he could see, Herc was in as effectual a trap as it would have been possible[Pg 240] to devise. Only a ladder could do him any good, and so far as obtaining that was concerned, he felt that he might just as well wish for anything impossible of attainment.

But Herc was not the sort of lad to give anything up without making a try to better his condition. As soon as his head, which had been sadly shaken in his fall, stopped aching a little, he got up from the pile of old sails and began a further examination of the cellar.

The first thing that struck him was that the floor was very wet. Slimy, slippery mud was under foot and a green weed grew wherever it could secure a roothold. His next discovery was that the walls were marked near to the top of the cellar by a distinct line.

Above this line their color was the dirty gray of the cement; but below, it was stained green as if from the action of water. Herc puzzled a good deal over this. He could not account for it by any theory of mere dampness. Just then[Pg 241] he was far indeed from guessing its true significance.

One thing, however, he was sure of: the cellar was close to the sea, for the sharp, acrid tang of the salt water mingled with the damp, decaying odor of the place, like a healthy, wholesome influence in a fever-stricken hospital ward.

His survey completed, Herc sank back on his pile of old sails to think matters over further. Not that he felt that there was really anything to be considered, save the fact that he was helpless and must depend upon outside aid for escaping from his predicament.

But no outside aid, he knew, was likely to reach him there. He wondered what was going to become of him. Since he had taken that plunge through the suddenly opened trap, he had heard nothing from above, no trample of feet, no sound of voices.

Was it possible that those in the house had deserted it precipitately and had left him there[Pg 242] to perish miserably like a rat in a hole? The thought chilled the hot blood in his veins and started the cold perspiration on his forehead. Herc was no coward, but the thought of facing death alone in that dark, dank hole might have unmanned many a sterner soul than he.

In his despair at the thought that he had been abandoned to his fate, Herc set up shout upon shout. But after a time he stopped this as being a useless waste of strength which it behooved him to husband for he knew not what emergency. Herc was not a lad given to beating about the bush. He faced the bald facts as he found them, and in the present situation he was unable to discover one crumb of comfort.

Then, too, what Kenworth had said about Ned kept recurring to his mind with disquieting effect. He could not bring himself to believe that Ned was, as the midshipman had said, dead at the bottom of the Sound; but nevertheless the[Pg 243] idea kept repeating itself over and over in his mind dishearteningly.

"What a fool I was ever to come in here at all," he muttered to himself bitterly. "It all comes of following my nose. Every time I do it, I land in trouble—but this is just about the worst ever. I wonder——"

He broke off short in his half spoken meditations.

A sudden sound had arrested his attention. At first he could not identify it and then suddenly he realized what it was. The tinkle of running water! Water was coming into the cellar from somewhere.

Ned stretched out his fingers for his matchbox, which he had placed near to him, and struck a light. As the lucifer flared up an exclamation of dismay broke from the Dreadnought Boy's lips.

"Good gracious!"

Over the floor of the cellar a thin layer of[Pg 244] water, perhaps an inch deep, had spread like a liquid carpet. It had not yet reached Herc on his pile of sails, but even while the match burned, he could see that the water was rising.

Chilled with a nameless dread he struck another match. This time he saw where the water was coming from. It was flowing in from an iron-barred vent near the floor of the place, which had escaped him on his previous survey.

At the same instant, Herc thought of the green stain on the cellar walls; that regular line of demarcation limned with greenish water-weed.

Then like a thunder-clap the hideous truth burst upon him: The cellar was below the water level and the water flowing into it was tidal. It came from the sea and rose till it reached that regular high-water mark he had noticed on the cellar wall.

As he realized all this, a shout of terror broke, despite himself, from Herc's lips. Was this to be his fate, his destiny, to perish in this dark,[Pg 245] hidden place beneath the waters of the incoming tide?

"Help!" he shouted at the top pitch of his lungs. "Help!"

But the lapping of the water as it slowly and remorselessly rose was the only reply to his wild outburst.