Chapter X: In Which the Old Saw, “out of the Frying-Pan, Into the

FIRE,” IS REVERSED WITH STARTLING EFFECT.

Back he ran, battling with the flames and sparks that rolled in volumes up the hillside, until, half-stifled and well-nigh fainting from the heat, he was forced to turn and flee for his life before the swiftly advancing flames.

Whether Puggles, terrified by the close proximity of the fire, had hung back at the last moment, or whether he had attempted to follow his master and paid for his devotion with his life, heaven alone knew.

“Poor chap!” gasped Don, as he stumbled free of the smoke and turned for a last look at the fiery veil so suddenly drawn over his faithful servant's fate. “God help him!”

The rapid advance of the fire, however, allowed little time for the indulgence of emotion. The long rainless months had scorched the face of the hill until the thick-set bamboo copse was as dry as tinder, inflammable as shavings. The wind and the steepness of the hillside, too, proved powerful allies of the flames. On and up they swept, leaping from point to point with such rapidity that Don found it necessary to strain every nerve to avoid being overtaken by the greedy holocaust. Glad indeed was he when, the scene of his recent adventure passed, he at length emerged upon the comparatively open ground abreast of the encampment.

Stumping uneasily to and fro, “abaft the fo'csle,” with Bosin perched contentedly upon his shoulder, was the old sailor--the jerky creak, creak of his wooden leg showing him to be in an unusually disturbed state of mind.

“Right glad I am to clap eyes on ye, lad!” he sang out cheerily on catching sight of the returned wanderer. “An' whereaway's Master Jack an' the leetle nigger, I axes?”

The captain paused abruptly, both in his walk and speech, for the pained look on Don's blackened but ghastly face told him at a glance that something more than ordinary was amiss.

Slowly setting down the lantern, which he had all along retained in his grasp--most fortunately, as it turned out--Don threw himself on the trampled grass, and, as rapidly as his shortness of breath would permit, summed up the disastrous results of his village expedition. In open-mouthed silence, as was his wont, the old sailor listened; but when he learned of the dark uncertainty that overhung the fate of Jack and Puggles, he hastily brushed aside a tear that straggled down his weather-beaten cheek, and, in a voice husky with emotion, burst into one of his characteristic snatches of song:

“Why, what's that to you if my eyes I'm a-wipin'?

A tear is a pleasure, d'ye see, in its way.

'Tis nonsense for trifles, I owns, to be pipin',

But they as hain't pily--why, I pities they!”

And having delivered himself of this sailorly apology for his weakness, he added in his usual voice:

“Blow me!--as the speakin trumpet says to the skipper--if ever I heard any yarn as beats this 'un, lad. Howsomedever, when the ship's a-sinkin', pipin' your eye ain't a-goin' to stop the leak, d'ye mind me; an' so, just to bear away on the off tack a bit, what d'ye make o' this 'ere confleegration, I axes?”

“I can tell you better what it came jolly near making of me, captain, and that's cinders! But what do _you_ make of it?--and, by the way, what were those shots for? You don't think there's any danger here, do you?”

“Ay,” replied the captain, with an emphatic tug at his neckerchief, “that I does, lad! An' why? you naterally axes. Because, d'ye mind me, the hill's ablaze from stem to starn--blow me if it bain t! Howsomedever,” leading the way towards a jagged remnant of wall that stood out in ghostly solitude amid the ruins, “go aloft an' cast an eye out to lee'ard, lad.”

The captain's ominous words prepared Don for an unpleasant surprise; yet, when he had scaled the pile of masonry, an involuntary cry of alarm broke from him.

“Good heavens, captain, we're surrounded by fire!”

“Right, lad! an' the confleegration's gettin' uncommon clost under our weather bow; says you. An hour back, d'ye see, I sights the first on 'em alongside o' the path below, an' fires the gun to signal ye to put about. An' then, flush, my scuppers! what does I see but a hull sarcle o' confleegrations, as it may be a cable's len'th apart, clean round the hill; lad! an' so I fires the second wolley.”

“This is the work of those cowardly niggers!” said Don, clenching his fists. “They daren't come here to fight us, so they mean to scorch us out!”

“The wery identical words as I says to myself when first I sights the fires, lad,” rejoined the captain; “an' a purty lot o' tobackie it cost me afore I overhauled the idee, says you.”

“It's likely to cost us more than a few pipes of tobacco, I'm afraid, captain,” said Don uneasily, leaping down from his post of observation. “The fire's close upon us, and once this grass catches, why, good-bye to the stores! I say, where's Spottie?”

“Belay there!” chuckled the captain, who, somehow, seemed remarkably cheerful, considering the gravity of the situation. “Whereaway's the nigger, you axes? Why, d'ye mind me, lad, this 'ere old hulk ain't been a-lyin' on her beam-ends all this time, not by a long chalk. The nigger's with the stores, d'ye see; an' stow my cargo, where should the stores be but safe and snug under hatches?”

With that he seized his perplexed companion by the arm, skirted the dilapidated wall, and presently halted on the very brink of a black chasm that yawned to the stars close under its rear. Little else was to be seen, for the wall cut off the light of both the fire and the moon. From the depths of the cavity proceeded a sound suspiciously like snoring. The captain indulged in another chuckle, and then, shaping his hands into a sort of speaking-trumpet, he bent over the hole and shouted loudly for Spottie. The snoring suddenly ceased, and in half a minute or so up the black tumbled, rubbing his eyes. The captain bade him fetch the lantern, adding strict injunctions that he should replenish the store of oil before lighting it.

“And now, lad, let's go below,” said he, when Spottie had fulfilled his mission.

So down they went, the captain leading. First came a dozen or more moss-grown steps, littered with blocks of stone, which, ages before, perhaps, had fallen and found a resting-place here. At the foot of the steps there opened out a subterranean passage, of height sufficient to admit of Don's standing erect in it with ease. Upon the floor lay the stores; beyond these again all was blank darkness. To all appearance the passage extended far into the bowels of the hill.

“Blow me!” chuckled the captain, turning a triumphant gaze upon the massive walls, “electric lightnin' itself ud never smell us out in sich a tidy berth as this, says you.”

“It certainly is a snug spot,” assented Don; “though I wish”--glancing round at their sadly depleted numbers--“I wish that Jack and Pug were as safe, poor fellows.”

“Cheer up, my hearty. As I says afore, there's a Providence, lad, as sits up aloft to keep watch for the life of poor Jack.' Ay, an for the nigger's too, d'ye mind me, lad,” rejoined the captain, blowing his nose loudly. “So let's turn out an' see what manner o' headway the confleegrations makin'.”

Brief as was their absence from “the glimpses of the moon,” the fire had made alarming progress in the interval. Viewed from the centre of the swiftly-narrowing cordon of flame, the scene was awesome in the extreme. The rear column of the invader advanced the more slowly of the two, but even it was now within a stone's throw of that godsend, the captain's “tidy berth.”

On the seaward side the flames had overleapt the jungle's edge, and seized with unsated greed upon the luxuriant grass that everywhere grew amid the ruins. Nearer still, the dense, parasitic growth upon the remnant of wall, ignited by the dense clouds of sparks which the wind drove far ahead of the actual fire, was blazing fiercely. The heat was stifling; the air, choked with smoke and showers of glowing sparks, unbreathable. They retreated precipitately to the cooler shelter of the underground chamber.

Even here the noise of the flames could be distinctly heard. Indeed, they had been barely ten minutes below when the fiery sea rolled with a sullen roar over their heads, the fierce heat driving them back from the entrance.

Some hours must pass before it would be either safe or practicable to venture into the open air. Accordingly, following the captain's example, Don made himself as comfortable for the night as circumstances permitted. A quantity of dried grass, which Spottie had thoughtfully collected and deposited beside the stores, afforded an excellent bed, and soon the deep breathing of all three told that sleep too had made this long untenanted nook her refuge.

Upwards of an hour had passed when a tremendous grinding crash shook the passage from roof to floor, and brought Don and the captain to their feet. They had fallen asleep surrounded by a subdued glow of firelight; they woke to find themselves in pitchy darkness. Bosin and the scarcely more courageous Spottie began to whimper.

“Avast there!” the captain sang out at the latter. “Is this a time to begin a-pipin' of your eye like a wench, I axes? Belay that, ye lubberly swab, an' light the binnacle lamp till we takes our bearin's.”

This order Spottie obeyed with an alacrity which, it is but due to him to explain, sprang rather from a dread of his master's heavy boot than from his fear of the dark. In the light thus thrown on the situation, the cause of the recent crash became only too apparent. So, too, did its effect.

The ruined wall which overtopped their place of refuge had fallen, completely blocking the exit with huge stones, still glowing hot from the action of the fire.

“Batten--my--hatches, lad!” ejaculated the old sailor, as the full significance of the catastrophe flashed upon him. “We're prisoners, says you!”