The Complete Works of Frances Hodgson Burnett. Frances Hodgson Burnett

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СКАЧАТЬ will kneel down and crawl on my hands and knees,” he said.

      “I will crawl back and forth and go over every inch of the floor with my hands until I find it. If I go over every inch, I shall find it.”

      So he kneeled down and began to crawl, and the cat watched him and purred.

      “We shall get out, Puss-cat,” he said to her. “I told you we should.”

      He crawled from the door to the wall at the side of the shelves, and then he crawled back again. The key might be quite a small one, and it was necessary that he should pass his hands over every inch, as he had said. The difficulty was to be sure, in the darkness, that he did not miss an inch. Sometimes he was not sure enough, and then he went over the ground again. He crawled backward and forward, and he crawled forward and backward. He crawled crosswise and lengthwise, he crawled diagonally, and he crawled round and round. But he did not find the key. If he had had only a little light, but he had none. He was so absorbed in his search that he did not know he had been engaged in it for several hours, and that it was the middle of the night. But at last he realized that he must stop for a rest, because his knees were beginning to feel bruised, and the skin of his hands was sore as a result of the rubbing on the flags. The cat and her kittens had gone to sleep and awakened again two or three times.

      “But it is somewhere!” he said obstinately. “It is inside the cellar. I heard something fall which was made of metal. That was the ringing sound which awakened me.”

      When he stood up, he found his body ached and he was very tired. He stretched himself and exercised his arms and legs.

      “I wonder how long I have been crawling about,” he thought. “But the key is in the cellar. It is in the cellar.”

      He sat down near the cat and her family, and, laying his arm on the shelf above her, rested his head on it. He began to think of another experiment.

      “I am so tired, I believe I shall go to sleep again. ‘Thought which Knows All’”—he was quoting something the hermit had said to Loristan in their midnight talk—“Thought which Knows All! Show me this little thing. Lead me to it when I awake.”

      And he did fall asleep, sound and fast.

      He did not know that he slept all the rest of the night. But he did. When he awakened, it was daylight in the streets, and the milk-carts were beginning to jingle about, and the early postmen were knocking big double-knocks at front doors. The cat may have heard the milk-carts, but the actual fact was that she herself was hungry and wanted to go in search of food. Just as Marco lifted his head from his arm and sat up, she jumped down from her shelf and went to the door. She had expected to find it ajar as it had been before. When she found it shut, she scratched at it and was disturbed to find this of no use. Because she knew Marco was in the cellar, she felt she had a friend who would assist her, and she miauled appealingly.

      This reminded Marco of the key.

      “I will when I have found it,” he said. “It is inside the cellar.”

      The cat miauled again, this time very anxiously indeed. The kittens heard her and began to squirm and squeak piteously.

      “Lead me to this little thing,” said Marco, as if speaking to Something in the darkness about him, and he got up.

      He put his hand out toward the kittens, and it touched something lying not far from them. It must have been lying near his elbow all night while he slept.

      It was the key! It had fallen upon the shelf, and not on the floor at all.

      Marco picked it up and then stood still a moment. He made the sign of the cross.

      Then he found his way to the door and fumbled until he found the keyhole and got the key into it. Then he turned it and pushed the door open—and the cat ran out into the passage before him.

      XVI

THE RAT TO THE RESCUE

      Marco walked through the passage and into the kitchen part of the basement. The doors were all locked, and they were solid doors. He ran up the flagged steps and found the door at the top shut and bolted also, and that too was a solid door. His jailers had plainly made sure that it should take time enough for him to make his way into the world, even after he got out of the wine-cellar.

      The cat had run away to some part of the place where mice were plentiful. Marco was by this time rather gnawingly hungry himself. If he could get into the kitchen, he might find some fragments of food left in a cupboard; but there was no moving the locked door. He tried the outlet into the area, but that was immovable. Then he saw near it a smaller door. It was evidently the entrance to the coal-cellar under the pavement. This was proved by the fact that trodden coal-dust marked the flagstones, and near it stood a scuttle with coal in it.

      This coal-scuttle was the thing which might help him! Above the area door was a small window which was supposed to light the entry. He could not reach it, and, if he reached it, he could not open it. He could throw pieces of coal at the glass and break it, and then he could shout for help when people passed by. They might not notice or understand where the shouts came from at first, but, if he kept them up, some one’s attention would be attracted in the end.

      He picked a large-sized solid piece of coal out of the heap in the scuttle, and threw it with all his force against the grimy glass. It smashed through and left a big hole. He threw another, and the entire pane was splintered and fell outside into the area. Then he saw it was broad daylight, and guessed that he had been shut up a good many hours. There was plenty of coal in the scuttle, and he had a strong arm and a good aim. He smashed pane after pane, until only the framework remained. When he shouted, there would be nothing between his voice and the street. No one could see him, but if he could do something which would make people slacken their pace to listen, then he could call out that he was in the basement of the house with the broken window.

      “Hallo!” he shouted. “Hallo! Hallo! Hallo! Hallo!”

      But vehicles were passing in the street, and the passersby were absorbed in their own business. If they heard a sound, they did not stop to inquire into it.

      “Hallo! Hallo! I am locked in!” yelled Marco, at the topmost power of his lungs. “Hallo! Hallo!”

      After half an hour’s shouting, he began to think that he was wasting his strength.

      “They only think it is a boy shouting,” he said. “Some one will notice in time. At night, when the streets are quiet, I might make a policeman hear. But my father does not know where I am. He will be trying to find me—so will Lazarus—so will The Rat. One of them might pass through this very street, as I did. What can I do!”

      A new idea flashed light upon him.

      “I will begin to sing a Samavian song, and I will sing it very loud. People nearly always stop a moment to listen to music and find out where it comes from. And if any of my own people came near, they would stop at once—and now and then I will shout for help.”

      Once when they had stopped to rest on Hampstead Heath, he had sung a valiant Samavian song for The Rat. The Rat had wanted to hear how he would sing when they went on their secret journey. He wanted him to sing for the Squad some day, to make the thing seem real. The Rat had been greatly excited, and had begged for the song often. It was a stirring martial thing СКАЧАТЬ