The Secret People

'Hey, steady there. How do they know the sea's still rising? None of them has ever showed his nose up there,' Smith interrupted.

'Because it keeps on coming in through more of those ventilating cracks as it reaches them.'

'What else are they doing?'

'Nothing much, from what I could hear. After all, what can they do? There seems to have been some talk of clearing off northward; there are caves at a higher level there, but they've been neglected so long that the fungus beds are no good. They might be able to replant them, but they're doubtful how long it will be before they yield.'

'So what it comes to,' said Smith reflectively, 'is a choice between staying here to drown, and going north to starve —unless, of course they take to the open. And they won't do that,' he added, looking questioningly at Gordon.

The latter shook his head. 'No, they won't do that,' he agreed.

'Why not?' asked Mark. 'Surely it's the reasonable thing to do?'

'Reason doesn't count much. Reason suggests that it is foolish to live on the side of a volcano, yet people continue to do it. These pygmies have been here too long, they've adapted too far. For one thing, the light outside would blind them right away. But the point is, whatever they do we're sure to be left behind. Pleasant outlook.'

Smith nodded. 'It only wants the water to break in here, and we'd drown like rats. There's just that one way for it to get out, and that's a hundred feet up—most of the caves aren't as high as that. Maybe we could swim until our heads hit the roof, then—good-bye-'

All the men in the room were silent for a while. Mark, looking along the row of faces, saw that most of them had their eyes on the American. When at last one of the strangers said:

'What shall we do?' it was as though he spoke for all. A tacit admission of Smith's leadership. There might be sense in some of Gordon's theories, and, Mark learned later, much worth in many of his plans; Mahmud they knew to be subtle, excellent for intelligence work. But when action was needed, decisions were to be made, they looked to Smith. And he sat thinking ...

Gordon watched him in the manner of one who could make a suggestion if called upon, but would not do so gratuitously. The stranger who had been the last to speak broke the silence again:

'If we double the work?' He suggested. 'It can't be far now-' He broke off suddenly and darted a suspicious glance at Mark. Smith looked up.

'You're too free with your trap, Braddon. Keep it shut closer.' He turned to look at Mark thoughtfully.

'That's all right,' Gordon broke in. 'He'll be with us all right. He's not one of Miguel's sort.'

'He wouldn't be here now if I thought he was,' Smith replied, 'but we've got to be careful all the same.' He addressed Mark directly. 'What we say goes no farther, not an inch—get that? It's not only Miguel we're up against, he's obvious, but some of his pals ain't. Keep this under your hat or—well, you won't have any place to wear a hat.'

'We've just seen Miguel,' Gordon broke in again.

'Where?'

'Zickle's place.'

'And what was he after?'

Gordon shrugged. 'Just prowling around to see what he could pick up—the only thing he got was a drink.'

'Well, let's hope he goes there again. Zickle might hand him some news.'

'What do you mean?'

'Miguel's after something, and if we want a false trail laid Zickle will do it. He hates Miguel like hell, but he's taking his time. I wouldn't like to be in Miguel's shoes when that nigger gets going.'

'I didn't know that,' said the man who had been addressed as Braddon, in an aggrieved voice. 'What's it all about?'

Smith admitted to being not quite clear on the point himself. There had been something about the woman whom Zickle had lived with—Miguel's being mixed up in it left it pretty easy to guess the rest. Anyway, it was a more than ordinary hate.

'Miguel's going to get no change out of Zickle,' he added.

'But he's damned suspicious—he knows there's something in the air.'

'Well, don't we all?'

'No, I don't mean about the floods—you can bet he knows that all right. I mean about us.'

'Oh?' Smith turned to Mahmud. 'You heard anything about this?'

Mahmud was vague. Miguel, he admitted, had become much thicker with certain of the pygmy prisoners lately. There was more than mere curiosity behind the way he had taken to continual questioning.

'Try to get a line on it. It's up to you to find out what his game is. He must have some reason for nosing round the way he does—and that's reason enough for our keeping extra quiet. We've got to be careful.'

'Sure,' one of the others agreed impatiently, 'but what are we going to do?'

'Push on all work with the upward tunnel—hard as we can. What do you think about Greek's tunnel, Gordon?'

Gordon seemed to have thought the matter over already, and had his answer pat.

'Drop it.'

Smith considered. The upward tunnel climbed at a steep angle; it was hard to believe that its end could be far off the surface now. For an unknown number of years men had toiled at that tunnel. Nobody now living in the prison caves could remember when it had been started, and only a chosen few knew of its existence. A group of men determined not to perish easily in these catacombs had begun to hew their way out. Slowly, for their tools were miserable and inadequate, they had driven a passage up on as steep a slant as they could use. Progress had proved even slower than they had expected, and the way longer than they had thought; but they had been men of active brains and bodies. They continued their tunnel because they had begun it, and because it had given them hope and occupation. Without work they would have sunk to the level of most of the prisoners, minds and bodies would have deteriorated together to leave a hopeless apathy if not insanity. And so, through unnumbered years, the tunnel had gone on. As it had grown in length, so they had grown in age. They were no longer the strong young men of the caves. They became middle-aged, elderly, shorter in the breath, weaker in the arm.

But others had come along to replace them. Men of various races filtering into the caves through a score of unknown entrances, some enraged, some fatalistic, most of them destined to sink into lassitude, but always here and there a few whose strength of mind, whose will to live, drove them into activity. From these the planners of the tunnel had selected their successors: shown them the passage which would one day lead to sunlight and freedom, taught them how to work the rock and bade them 'get on with it. And the younger men had taken the worn-down chisels, and gone to work. Like the old men, they started to carve a road to liberty, and, again like the old men, they went on working to preserve sanity. Hopes became all but forlorn. Their tunnel was now several hours journey in length. They worked steadily, but the fire had gone. The light of expectation had dimmed from their eyes. Yet there was the sure knowledge that some day much come a hollow ringing in the rock, then a chisel point would break through to let in a gleam of daylight. And they plodded on.

They, too, grew old and were replaced by younger men. The authors of the tunnel would not now live to see daylight again; many were already dead, and those who were left, sunk in senility. But their work still lived; others toiled on with a faith which could be dimmed but not snuffed. The workers had chosen their successors well. Backsliders had been few. They had held themselves for the most part aloof from the discouraged, lest they might be contaminated. The rest knew, as of course they must, that the workers were active upon some plan, but they were not interested. If men liked to work when there was no call to perform any task more serious than an occasional spell in the fungus caves, it was their own foolishness. Moreover, the workers took good care to discourage such sporadic outbursts of curiosity as did occur.