American fiction -- 19th century; Detective and mystery stories
Hesitating to follow, the man stood for a moment gazing back upon the
town and the stretch of lovely landscape before him. It was an outlook
of great charm, but I doubt if he noticed its beauties. Some thought of
an unpleasant and perplexing nature furrowed his brow, and it was with a
start that he turned, when the dog, reissuing from the cave, renewed his
blandishments, and by dint of bark and whine attempted to draw him into
the opening before which he stood.
What was in hiding there? Curiosity bade him look, but a certain not
unreasonable apprehension deterred him. He finally, however, overcame
his fear, if fear it was, and followed the dog, that no sooner saw him
start toward the entrance than he gave a leap of delight and bounded
into the cave before him. In another moment the man had entered also and
was looking around for the helpless or wounded human being whom he
evidently expected to find.
But no such sight met his eyes. On the contrary, he saw nothing but an
empty cave with here and there a sign of the place having been used as a
domicile at a recent date. In one corner was a litter of boughs from
which the covering had manifestly been roughly torn, and in the ledges
overhead were to be seen spikes of wood, upon which utensils had
doubtless been hung, for amid the _débris_ of broken rock beneath lay an
old tin pan with the handle broken off.
As there was nothing in this to interest the man he turned and kicked at
the inoffensive beast who had lured him out of his path on such a
fruitless errand. But the latter instead of resenting this harshness
only renewed his previous antics, and finally succeeding by them in
re-attracting the man’s attention, led the way to a remote corner of the
cave, where the shadows were thickest. Here he stood with his paws
raised against the rocky sides, looking up over his head and then back
at the man in a way which left no doubt as to his meaning.
He wanted the man to climb, and when the man approaching saw the few
rocky steps that had been hewn out of the wall, his curiosity was
renewed and he lent himself to the effort, old as he was and tired with
many a long hour of tramping in the summer sun.
Above him he perceived a dark hole, and into this he presently thrust
his head, but the darkness which he encountered was so impenetrable that
he would have instantly retreated had he not remembered the box of
matches which kept guard with an old pipe in a certain pocket of his red
flannel shirt. Taking out this box, he struck a match and, as soon as
the first dazzling flash was over, perceived that he was in a small but
well furnished room, stocked with provisions and containing many
articles of domestic use. This so surprised him that he withdrew in some
haste, though he would dearly have liked to have made some investigation
into the old chest of drawers he saw there, and had one peep at least
into the odd, long box which took up so much of the darkened space into
which he had intruded.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account