The Captain stopped, and faced about, edging his way to his left. A yellow light appeared suddenly at the far end of the chamber, illuminating the entrance to the passage for an instant before it swept in a wide arc towards him. He saw that he was indeed beyond its radius, realized that he must be standing quite near to the opposite wall, and swiftly moved to where he judged the side wall must be. Once he had reached this he would very quickly find the chests, for they had been placed, he knew, close to it.
All at once he was startled by the disappearance of the light, and could not for a moment think what had happened. Then he remembered that only Stornaway knew that he was unarmed, and realized that Coate, ignorant of his exact whereabouts, must be afraid to betray his own position. At that moment, he collided with the wall, stubbing one foot, and grazing one out-thrust hand. He turned again, feeling his way along it, his other hand, still gripping his shoes, stretched out to encounter the chest which had been set up on its end.
A light appeared again, wobbling and wavering. He knew it must be cast from Stornaway’s lantern, and was not surprised when he heard Coate say furiously: “Cover your lantern, fool! Do you want to make a target of yourself?”
“He has no pistols with him!” Stornaway’s voice, raised in extreme agitation, seemed to echo all round the roof.
Now for it! thought John, and in that instant found the chests, and dropped to the ground behind them. Beside the first of these, which his hand had brushed, and which he knew to be up-ended, stood two more, one on top of the other; beyond them the other three had been set down side by side, and were not deep enough to afford him any cover. Crouching behind the first chests, he at last abandoned his shoes, and waited for Coate to come within his reach. He heard the hasty tread of shod feet, saw the light approaching, and gathered himself together in readiness. The light swept the wall at the end of the chamber, found the entrance to the slope, and stayed there for a moment: the possibility that he was escaping from the cavern had obviously occurred to Coate. One swift glance over his shoulder showed the Captain that Stornaway was still standing at the far end of the chamber, aimlessly turning his lantern this way and that. While Coate’s attention was still fixed on the way of escape, the Captain rose silently to his feet, stepped sideways, clear of the first chest, and, as the beam of light swung towards him, launched himself straight at it. He reached Coate, before the light was focused fully upon him, colliding with him, chest to chest, and flinging one arm round him, pinioning his left arm, holding the lantern, to his side, and grabbing his right just below the elbow.
The lantern fell to the ground with the tinkle of breaking glass; a little flicker of flame ran over the rock, and died; in darkness the two men swayed and struggled desperately, John trying to hold Coate powerless while he shifted his grip on his right arm to the wrist, all the time keeping this pistol hand pointing harmlessly upwards, and Coate striving with all his might to wrench free from an encircling arm that was holding him in a bear’s hug.
He was a shorter man than John, but thickset, and very powerful, as John soon discovered. Hampered as he was by the necessity of maintaining his cramping hold on that dangerous right arm, he had to put forth every ounce of his great strength to continue holding Coate so closely pressed against himself that he could neither get his left hand to the second pistol John could feel digging into his ribs, nor find the knife which John guessed he carried somewhere about his person. Fractionally, as they struggled together, shifting this way and that over the damp, uneven rock-floor, John was moving his grip nearer and nearer to Coate’s wrist. His stockinged feet, holding the slippery ground more securely than Coate’s boots, gave him a slight advantage. His toes suffered, but they were by this time so numbed by the cold that he was scarcely aware of being trodden on.
For a minute they battled in complete darkness, but Stornaway came hurrying and stumbling up the length of the cavern, wildly waving his lantern about in an attempt to discover their whereabouts. Its light, vacillating in a way that betrayed how Stornaway’s hand must be trembling, fell on Coate’s face, and showed it livid, sweat starting on it, the lips drawn back in a grimace like a dog’s snarl from clenched teeth. It showed his right arm, uplifted and held by John’s grip round it, and his left still trying to work free from the hug which clamped it to his body. In an agony of indecision, Stornaway teetered about the swaying couple, his own pistol in his hand. Once he raised it, and as he did so, the position of the struggling pair altered, and it was Coate’s back which was turned towards him instead of John’s. His eyes fixed on them, he ventured closer; the Captain saw him, and with a superhuman effort which made his muscles crack swung Coate round, interposing his body between himself and Stornaway. Stornaway, who seemed scarcely to know what to do, retreated a step, and ran round the group. So riveted was his attention that he failed to perceive that another light than the one he carried now illuminated the scene. His change of position had brought him between the combatants and the entrance to the chamber, his back turned to this, and he never saw Jeremy Chirk’s arrival. The highwayman, hearing the stamp and scrape of shod feet ahead when he was halfway down the perilous stair, and the unconscious cries Stornaway kept on uttering, abandoned caution, and came down the rest of the steep descent with a reckless speed which left his more ponderous companion far in the rear, and raced down the slope to the opening into the main chamber. There he paused, coolly surveying the three men before him, keeping the beam of his lantern steadily upon them.
The Captain’s hand had reached Coate’s wrist; Stornaway, standing behind him, lifted his pistol, and tried to aim it. His hand was shaking like a leaf, so that the muzzle wobbled lamentably. A deafening report as Coate’s gun exploded was succeeded so immediately by a second that this sounded like a sharp echo, reverberating round the vaulted roof of the chamber. A couple of stalactites dropped on to the floor, and Coate’s empty pistol fell with a crash, just as Stornaway, who had uttered a queer groan, crumpled where he stood, and collapsed in an inert heap.
The Captain, suddenly releasing Coate, sprang back, his great chest heaving, and his fists up. He met a rushing attack with a left and a murderous right that brought Coate down. He was up again in an instant, a hand fumbling at his waist. The Captain saw the flash of steel in the lantern-light, and hurled himself with such force at him that both men went down together. But the Captain was uppermost, and his hands were at Coate’s throat. Mr. Chirk, perceiving this, and aware that the panting Runner had reached the entrance, and was standing at his elbow, shifted his lantern, and directed its beam on to Stornaway’s still figure.
Mr. Stogumber, out of breath, first amazed by the extent of the cavern, and then shaken by a fall on the stair, was feeling a little dazed, and was unable for a few moments to marshal his wits into order. He had heard what sounded like two shots, he had seen Coate’s attempt to stab the Captain, and he had seen the two men go down in a wildly struggling tangle of arms and legs. Then they were lost in darkness, and he found himself staring at a dead man on the ground before him. “Here!” he ejaculated. “What——How——?”
Chirk slid a long-nosed pistol unobtrusively into the wide pocket of his coat. “The poor fellow was shot, trying to help the Soldier,” he said sadly. “Dropped him like a pigeon, Coate did! Ah, well, it ain’t no use crying over spilt milk!”
“Get out o’ my way!” Stogumber said fiercely, thrusting him aside, and swinging his lantern to pick up the forms of Coate and the Captain.
Chirk, whose quick, listening ears, had already caught the sound for which he had been waiting, made no effort to stop him, but directed his own lantern towards the spot where he had seen the two men struggling on the ground. The struggle was over. Coate lay spread-eagled, and beside him, on his knee, labouring to recover his breath, his head sunk forward, was the Captain.