Chapter VI: On the Underground River

Though there was a good deal of misty vapor in the tunnel, it was possible to keep reasonably dry and comfortable by wrapping in the blankets taken from the canoe.

A generous supper, taken from the canoe supplies, helped much to add to the cheerfulness which the scout’s hopeful manner created.

Flynn lighted his pipe when supper was over, and sat on the rocks, smoking and talking of the outlook.

“Begorra, the drainage is good, f’r wan thing!” he declared, as he saw Cudjo heave some of the supper remnants into the river. “A felly might shtay here a good while, though the mist would damage his health, I’m thinkin’. There’s many a worse place in the world, no doubt. Shtill, I’m not wantin’ to shtay longer than I nade to.”

“I doan’ want tuh stay at all,” said Cudjo. “Marse Cody, didn’t you heah somepin’?”

“I heard nothing,” the scout answered. “If you’ll lie down, Cudjo, and get some rest and sleep, you’ll feel better. Wrap up in that blanket and lie down a while.”

“Dis river make so much noise I couldn’t sleep a wink, Marse Cody!” Cudjo declared. “And I keeps hearin’ fings. You doan’ heah um?”

“I hear nothing but the roar of the river.”

“’Twas a kind ob low moanin’ like, Marse Cody. Dar it is ag’in. An’ I heah’s somepin’ breathin’ hard, too.”

Cudjo got up and walked uneasily to and fro. At last he sat down on a log by the shore. That is, he thought it was a log when he sat down on it; but he knew better soon, for what he supposed to be a log, taking no notice of him at first, began by and by to squirm under him. He sprang to his feet with a howl that would have done credit to an Indian.

“Marse Cody!” he screeched, “dis heah log is alive! Befo’ the Lawd it is! Yah! Hit’s movin’.”

Buffalo Bill and Mickey Flynn ran to him, and then they beheld an astonishing thing.

A long, dark object, which in the poor light they had from the first fancied was a wet log, had moved from its bed and was crawling slowly into the water.

Cudjo had jumped back, and was screeching again.

“You see it, Marse Cody?” he yelled. “You see it?”

Buffalo Bill ran back for the candle, and, bringing it up, flashed its light down on the moving “log.”

“An alligator!” he exclaimed, holding the light close to the creature’s back. “No, not an alligator,” he corrected, “though it resembles one. What is it?”

The lizardlike thing drew its length lazily into the water, where it sank out of sight without a sound, although they were given time to see it.

It was not an alligator, though it certainly was a saurian. It resembled an alligator, or crocodile, but was more sluggish, had a larger head, and a thicker, shorter body.

Cudjo’s panicky fright was too pitiable to be laughed at. He was almost in a state of collapse.

“Dat’s de fing I heard breathin’,” he declared. “Hit must er been. And to fink dat I set down on it! Dat sho’ does analyze me! I’se dat trimbly and skeered dat I cain’t move. Marse Cody, does ye’ reckon any more ob um is roun’ heah?”

That he might be sure there were not, Buffalo Bill began to look over the island with the aid of the candle. Flynn accompanied him, but Cudjo remained behind, keeping now near the very top of the rocky islet, that he might be as far as possible from the water.

“Begorra, there’s another wan av the bloody crathers!” declared Flynn.

But this was only a log, slimy and wet, looking, in the faint light, much like the strange saurian sat on by the negro.

“There are no more here,” said the scout, when he and Flynn had made their circle of the island.

“You bet I stays awake dis night!” said Cudjo. “Dat was an alligator, and an alligator sho’ does love nigger meat. Yo’ couldn’t make me lay down ag’in if you was to hit me wid a club. No, sir! I keeps my eyes open dis night. None of dem fings ain’t gwine to swaller me while I’m sleepin’.”

While they were talking they heard a roar down the river—a singular sound, mingling with the noise of the stream. They did not doubt it was made by the saurian, which they believed had gone in that direction.

Though Buffalo Bill did not blame Cudjo for having been frightened by his unpleasant experience, he tried to argue him into a quieter frame of mind, and again advised him to lie down and try to get some rest, assuring him that the “alligator” would not return. But Cudjo sat up, refusing to trust himself in the blanket.

Buffalo Bill and Flynn talked, while Flynn smoked pipeful after pipeful of tobacco.

The scout lay down at last, when his watch showed that the time was after midnight. Then Flynn rolled in his blanket, and Cudjo, fearing to stare longer out into the darkness, also wrapped himself up, and tried to get some rest, if not some sleep.

All slept soundly before morning.

When they woke the darkness still held, though the scout fancied it was not as dense. His watch showed him that it was seven o’clock.

They had breakfast from the boat’s stores, and again Flynn smoked his pipe, while they talked of what they should now do.

Then the canoe was loaded again, and they took their places in it, and floated off from the island, trusting themselves once more to the swift stream. It was the only thing they could do.

A number of candles threw their light on the water, enabling the scout, who sat in the prow, to see obstructions.

With the deafening roar of the river about them, the canoe plunging on, and uncertainty ahead, that was not a pleasant voyage. How long it continued they hardly knew.

More than once, by a deft stroke of his paddle, Buffalo Bill saved the frail craft from destruction.

The light of the candles showed only seamed, black walls, where the mist of the river had collected and hung in glistening drops, which resembled flashing diamonds as the light of the candles touched them. The river looked as black as the walls.

After a while Buffalo Bill became sure that the daylight was brightening in the tunnel. That he might be sure of this, after speaking of it to his companions, he swept the candles into a heap in the bottom of the canoe, extinguishing them.

For a little while the darkness seemed to have been made pitchy black, but it was only by reason of the contrast. Soon it became clear that the dark tunnel was really growing brighter ahead.

“Hooray!” Flynn yelled, unable to restrain his joy. “I’d welcome light ahead there av it was fr’m the fires of the pit. Whoosh! But we’re fair flyin’.”

They could again see the walls flying past them, showing the speed with which the canoe was going.

The current was nearly free of rocks, and it was not difficult work to keep the canoe away from the walls, so that this terrific speed really harmed nothing now.

Brighter and still brighter grew the light within the tunnel.

The brightness came from ahead, showing that some sort of opening was there which let in the sunlight.

Cudjo forgot his fears, and clamored for the canoe to go faster, when it seemed already that it was almost flying.

Then a white point, like a star, shone dead ahead.

“The opening!” shouted Buffalo Bill. “There it is!”

Cudjo chattered his joy, and the Irishman’s lips shot out wild exclamations.

Steadily that starlike point of light gained in size, and the brightness of the tunnel increased. Then they could see that the “star” was a hole through which light came.

“Kape her goin’!” yelled Flynn, sweeping the canoe on with his paddle. “Kape her goin’!”

The shining aperture enlarged rapidly, and soon the canoe was right in it, and a blinding flash of daylight was just before. Then the canoe shot out of the tunnel’s black mouth, and sped along the surface of a stream that rolled between rocky and sandy banks. Behind towered the high walls of mountains, steep as upright boards, reaching apparently to the sky.

“We’ve passed through the walls,” said the scout, “and are in the Golconda Cup.”

“And that letther wasn’t a lie at all, at all!” said Flynn. “Glory be! It’s praisin’ the saints I am f’r this blissed minute.”

As they floated on they saw that they were in a vast valley, encircled by precipitous mountain walls, and that the river flowed through it. They were in the Golconda Cup, which it was said no man had ever entered.

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