"And you, Sidney! Who"d ever thought of finding you in town again?
Why, I thought you were still somewhere up the Zambesi."
"Got back yesterday, my dear fellow. And not sorry either, I can tell you. The surveying for the new railroad was a far tougher job than I antic.i.p.ated. I went down with fever, so they sent me home on six months" leave."
"But you"re all right now," Winsloe said, and then introduced his friend as Sidney Humphreys who, he explained, had been out in Africa in connection with the Cape to Cairo railway.
"Where are you fellows going?" asked the newcomer.
"Home, I think," Winsloe replied. "Hughes doesn"t care for ballets."
"Come round to my rooms and see the curios I"ve brought back," he urged.
"I"ve still kept on the old chambers. The things I"ve got were mostly dug out of the ruins of an ancient city--relics of the time of King Solomon, I believe. You"re fond of antiques, Ellice, so come and spend an hour and have a look at them. You"ll be interested, I promise you, and I"d like to know your opinion."
Winsloe hesitated for a moment, then, turning to me, said,--
"You"ll come too, won"t you?"
At first I excused myself, for I was anxious to find Eric, but presently I allowed myself to be persuaded, for truth to tell, I, too, was very fond of antiquities, and was therefore anxious to see this latest find.
We drove in a hansom along Regent Street, and then through several side streets, until presently we alighted before the door of a dark, respectable-looking house, into which Humphreys let us with his latchkey.
"Go on up," he exclaimed, when we were in the hall. "You know your way, Ellice--the old rooms, second floor."
And so while he held back in the hall looking at some cards that had been left, I climbed the broad old-fashioned stairs with Winsloe.
At the first landing my companion held back for me to go on before, laughing, and saying,--
"Go straight on--the room right before you," and compelling me to ascend first, he followed.
Suddenly I heard men"s voices raised in angry altercation, apparently proceeding from another room, and what was more, I was struck by a distinct belief that one voice was Eric"s. Yet surely that could not be possible.
"I defy you!" I heard the voice cry. "Say no more. You hear! You may kill me, but I defy you!"
I halted, startled. The voice was so very like Eric"s that I could have sworn it was his.
A sharp cry of pain--a man"s cry--rang out from behind a closed door on the landing I was approaching. Then there followed a long-drawn-out groan, ending almost in a sigh.
A tragedy was being enacted there!
I clapped my hand upon the revolver I always carried in my hip-pocket, and went forward quickly, eager and puzzled, but just as I placed my feet upon the last steps to gain the landing where the man"s chambers were, four or five of the stairs suddenly gave way beneath me, and I fell feet foremost into the great yawning opening there revealed. I was the victim of a dastardly treachery!
I know that I clutched wildly at air when I felt myself falling down, down to what seemed an unfathomable depth. I held my breath, for at that instant a man"s wild shriek rang in my ears. Then next second I felt my skull crushed, and with it all consciousness became blotted out.
I was entrapped--helpless in the hands of quondam friends who were really my bitterest and most unscrupulous enemies.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
IS EXTRAORDINARY.
The agony was excruciating. A burning bubbling seethed in my brain, as though my skull were filled with molten metal. My mouth was parched, my neck stiff, and my jaws were fixed when I opened my eyes and found myself in a great chasm of cavernous darkness.
How long I had lain there I have no idea.
The thunder of rolling, roaring waters deafened me, and my lower limbs were so benumbed that at first I was unable to move them. I felt my leg, and then discovered the reason. Wet to the skin, I was lying half in water, my head alone being on some slightly higher ground--a fortunate circ.u.mstance that had certainly saved me from being drowned.
Where was I?
For fully ten minutes--minutes that seemed hours, I was utterly unable to move, but presently I managed, by dint of supreme effort, to struggle to my feet and grope about me unsteadily, at last finding a smooth arched wall. I lifted my hand above my head and found that I could touch the roof.
In that pitch darkness, with the roaring torrent at my side, I dare not move two paces lest I might lose my foothold.
I felt frantically in my pocket, and my heart leapt when I found that I still possessed a box of wax vestas. The silver box was water-tight.
One of these I struck quickly, but its light was lost in that cavernous blackness.
It only showed me the bricked walls, high to the roof, wet and slimy, and revealed to me that I was in one of the main sewers of London! At my side the great black torrent flowed on towards the outfall with deafening roar in that long, interminable tunnel beneath the Metropolis.
Rats, hundreds of them, grey and scuttling, ran helter-skelter on seeing the fickle light; but I stood motionless leaning against the wall and gazing around at my weird surroundings until the match went out. My head reeled, I feared to walk lest I should stagger into the Stygian stream.
Knowledge of where I was gave me courage, however. My head was very painful with strange fancies dancing through my imagination. I think that the blow had unbalanced my brain.
Which way should I turn? To right or left? Was mortal man ever in such a predicament? I recognised the truth. I remembered one appalling fact. The scoundrels had sent me through into that deadly place, knowing that even if the fall did not kill me outright, I must be drowned when, at regular intervals, the sewer was automatically flushed, and my body washed out to the Thames estuary.
I had seen the walls still wet to the roof from the last flushing, and as I recognised my awful peril, my blood ran cold. At any moment might come that gigantic flood to sweep me away into eternity in an instant.
Somewhere, higher up, was that mechanism which at certain hours of day and night automatically let loose the great sweeping wave through the long, black tunnel sweeping to the sea, the cleansing of London.
My only hope was to find safety somewhere, therefore in frantic haste, all forgetful of the pain I was suffering, I turned to the right and groped along the wall by aid of a match, the light of which was not sufficient to show the true dimensions of the sewer.
On, on, I went, how far I have no idea. It seemed to be miles. My matches burned only dimly, so bad was the air. Time after time I came to side channels, small arches belching forth their black stream into the roaring torrent like tributaries of a river, until I suddenly saw something white upon the wall, and, raising my match, discerned the painted words: "Poland Street."
Then I knew that I was beneath Poland Street, close to Oxford Street.
I was in search of a manhole by which to ascend to the roadway, but, alas! could not discover one. A great terror seized me lest the flush should come before I could gain a place of safety.
I was in the act of striking another match, in order to proceed more quickly, when I felt my head reeling, and in clutching at the wall for support the matchbox fell from my nerveless fingers into the water.
My disaster was thus complete. Without light how could I find a place in which to raise myself above the level of the flood?
My heart stood still. In that moment the recollection of all the sequence of strange and startling events of the past few weeks pa.s.sed in rapid review before me. My enemies had entrapped me, and I now knew that I was doomed.
Eric"s shout of defiance, followed by that groan and shriek, still rang in my ears, but, most tantalising of all, I had no idea where the house to which I had been enticed was situated. It was somewhere off Regent Street, but further than that I had no knowledge.
I saw how cleverly the whole affair had been arranged; how the man introduced to me as Humphreys had met us by appointment in the vestibule of the Empire, and how, knowing my interest in antiques, the bait had been so cleverly placed.
I had now no doubt that Ellice Winsloe was an adventurer, therefore my eager desire was to reveal to Scarcliff the astounding truth.
And yet this was actually the man who had the audacity to propose marriage to Sybil, and she had contemplated accepting him!
To old Lady Scarcliff the fellow had posed as a gentleman of means, and had so ingratiated himself with Jack that the pair had become inseparable. The situation was monstrous.