A Voyage of Consolation by Sara Jeannette Duncan (top 10 most read books in the world .txt) 📖

his hand under his head, and looked on.

"As a child your intelligence promised well," said Dicky; "that _is_ Jonah, though not of the Revised Version. I don't think Bible stories ought to be illustrated, do you, Mrs. Portheris? It has such a bad effect on the imagination."

"We can talk of that at another time, Mr. Dod. At present I wish to be restored to my daughter. Let us push on at once. And please explain how it is that we have had to walk so far to get to this place, which was only a few yards from where we were standing when Brother Demetrius left us!" Mrs. Portheris's words were commanding, but her tone was the tone of supplication.

"I'm afraid I can't," said Dicky, "but for that very reason I think we had better stay where we are. They are pretty sure to look for us here."

"I cannot possibly wait to be looked for. I must be restored to my daughter! You must make an effort, Mr. Dod. And, now that I think of it, I have left the key of our boxes in the drawer of the dressing-table, and the key of that is in it, and the housemaid has the key of the room. It is absolutely necessary that I should go back to the hotel at once."

"My dear lady," said Dicky, "don't you realize that we are lost?"

"Lost! Impossible! _Shout_, Mr. Dod!"

Dicky shouted, and all the Early Christians answered him. There are said to be seven millions. Mrs. Portheris grasped his arm convulsively.

"Don't do that again," she said, "on any account. Let us go on!"

"Much better not," protested Dicky.

"On! on!" commanded Mrs. Portheris. There was no alternative. We put Dicky in the middle again, and cautiously stepped out. A round of blue paper under our chaperone's arm caught the eye of Mr. Dod. "What luck!" he exclaimed, "you have brought the liqueur with you, Mrs. Portheris. I think we'd better all have some, if you don't mind. I've been in warmer cemeteries."

As she undid the bottle, Mrs. Portheris declared that she already felt the preliminary ache of influenza. She exhorted us to copious draughts, but it was much too nasty for more than a sip, though warming to a degree.

"Better take very little at a time," Dicky suggested, but Mrs. Portheris reaffirmed her faith in the virtues of eucalyptus, and with such majesty as was compatible with the neck of the bottle, drank deeply. Then we stumbled on. Presently Mrs. Portheris yawned widely twice, thrice, and again. "I beg your pardon," said she, "I don't seem able to help it."

"It's the example of these gaping sepulchres," Dicky replied. "Don't apologize."

The passages grew narrower and more complex, the tombs more irregular. We came to one that partly blocked the path, tilted against the main wall like a separate sarcophagus, though it was really part of the solid rock. Looking back, a wall seemed to have risen behind us; it was a distinctly perplexing moment, hard upon the nerves. The tomb was empty, except for a few bones that might have been anything huddled at the bottom, and Mrs. Portheris sat down on the lower end of it. "I really do not feel able to go any further," she said; "the ascent is so perpendicular."

I was going to protest that the place was as level as a street, but Dicky forestalled me. "Eucalyptus," he said soothingly, "often has that effect."

"We are lost," continued Mrs. Portheris lugubriously, "in the Catacombs. We may as well make up our minds to it. We came here this morning at ten o'clock, and I should think, I should think--thish mus' be minnight on the following day."

"My watch has run down," said Dicky, "but you are probably quite right, Mrs. Portheris."

"It is doubtful," Mrs. Portheris went on, pulling herself together, "whether we are ever found. There are nine hundred miles of Catacombs. Unless we become cannibals we are likely to die of starvation. If we do become cannibals, Mr. Dod," she added, sternly endeavouring to look Dicky in the eye, "I hope you will remember what ish due to ladies."

"I will offer myself up gladly," said he, and I could not help reflecting upon the comfort of a third party with a sense of humour under the circumstances.

"Thass right," said Mrs. Portheris, nodding approvingly, and much oftener than was necessary. "Though there isn't much on you--you won't go very far." Then after a moment of gloomy reflection she blew out her candle, and, before I could prevent it, mine also. Dicky hastily put his out of reach.

"Three candles at once," she said virtuously, "in a room of this size! It is wicked extravagance, neither more nor less."

I assure you you would have laughed, even in the Catacombs, and Dicky and I mutually approached the borders of hysteria in our misplaced mirth. Mrs. Portheris smiled in unison somewhat foolishly, and we saw that slumber was overtaking her. Gradually and unconsciously she slipped down and back, and presently rested comfortably in the sepulchre of her selection, sound asleep.

"She is right in it," said Dicky, holding up his candle. "She's a lulu," he added disgustedly, "with her eucalyptus."

This was disrespectful, but consider the annoyance of losing a third of our forces against seven million Early Christian ghosts. We sat down, Dicky and I, with our backs against the tomb of Mrs. Portheris, and when Dicky suggested that I might like him to hold my hand for a little while I made no objection whatever. We decided that the immediate prospect, though uncomfortable, was not alarming, that we had been wandering about for possibly an hour, judging by the dwindling of Dicky's candle, and that search must be made for us as soon as ever the others went above ground and heard from Brother Demetrius the tale of our abandonment. I said that if I knew anything about momma's capacity for underground walking, the other party would have gone up long ago, and that search for us was, therefore, in all likelihood, proceeding now, though perhaps it would be wiser, in case we might want them, to burn only one candle at a time. We had only to listen intently and we would hear the voices of the searchers. We did listen, but all that we heard was a faint far distant moan, which Dicky tried to make me believe was the wind in a ventilating shaft. We could also hear a prolonged thumping very close to us, but that we could each account for personally. And nothing more.

"Dicky," said I after a time, "if it weren't for the candle I believe I should be frightened."

"It's about the most parsimonious style of candle I've ever seen," replied Dicky, "but it would give a little more light if it were trimmed." And he opened his pocket-knife.

"Be very careful," I begged, and Dicky said "Rather!"

"Did you ever notice," he asked, "that you can touch flame all right if you are only quick enough? Now, see me take the top off that candle." If Dicky had a fault it was a tendency to boastfulness. He took the lighted wick between his thumb and his knife-blade, and skilfully scooped the top off. It blazed for two seconds on the edge of the blade--just long enough to show us that all the flame had come with it. Then it went out, and in the darkness at my side I heard a scuffling among waistcoat pockets, and a groan.

"No matches?" I asked in despair.

"Left 'em in my light overcoat pockets, Mamie. I'm a bigger ass than--than Mafferton."

"You are," I said with decision. "No Englishman goes anywhere without his light overcoat. What have you done with yours?"

"Left it in the carriage," replied Dick humbly.

"That shows," said I bitterly, "how little you have learned in England. Propriety in connection with you is evidently like water and a duck's back. An intelligent person would have acquired the light overcoat principle in three days, and never have gone out without it afterward."

"Oh, go on!" replied Dick fiercely. "Go on. I don't mind. I'm not so stuck on myself as I was. But if we've got to die together you might as well forgive me. You'll have to do it at the last moment, you know."

"I suppose you have begun to review your past life," I said grimly, "and that's why you are using so much American slang."

Then, as Dicky was again holding my hands, I maintained a dignified silence. You cannot possibly quarrel with a person who is holding your hand, no matter how you feel.

"There's only one thing that consoles me in connection with those matches," Dicky mentioned after a time. "They were French ones."

"I don't know what that has to do with it," I said.

"That's because you don't smoke," Dicky replied. And I had not the heart to pursue the inquiry. Time went on, black and silent, as it had been doing down there for sixteen centuries. We stopped arguing about why they didn't come to look for us, each privately wondering if it was possible that we had strayed too ingeniously ever to be found. We talked of many things to try to keep up our spirits, the conviction of the _St. James's Gazette_ that American young ladies live largely upon chewing-gum, and other topics far removed from our surroundings, but the effort was not altogether successful. Dicky had just permitted himself to make a reference to his mother in Chicago when a sound behind us made us both start violently, and then cheered us immensely--a snore from Mrs. Portheris within the tomb. It was not, happily, a single accidental snore, but the forerunner of a regular series, and we hung upon them as they issued, comforted and supported. We were vaguely aware that we could have no better defence against disembodied Early Christians, when, in the course of an hour, Mrs. Portheris sat up suddenly among the bones of the original occupant and asked what time it was. We felt a pang of regret at losing it.

After the first moment or two that lady realized the situation completely. "I suppose," she said, "we have been down here about two days. I am quite faint with hunger. I have often read that candles, under these terrible circumstances, are sustaining. What a good thing we have got the candles."

Dicky squeezed my hand nervously, but our chaperone had slept off the eucalyptus and had no longer one cannibal thought.

"I don't think it is time for candles yet," he said reassuringly. "You have been asleep, you know, Mrs. Portheris."

"If you have eaten them already, I consider that you have taken an unfair advantage, a very unfair advantage."

"Here is mine!" exclaimed Dicky nobly. "I hope I can deny myself, Mrs. Portheris, to that extent."

"And mine," I echoed; "but really, Mrs. Portheris----"

Another pressure of Dicky's hand reminded me--I am ashamed to confess it--that if Mrs. Portheris was bent upon the unnecessary consumption of Roman tallow there was nothing in her past treatment of either of us to induce us to prevent her. The dictates of humanity, I know, should have influenced us otherwise, in connection with tallow, but they seemed for the moment to have faded as completely out of our bosoms as they did out of the early Roman persecutors! It seemed to me that all my country's wrongs at the hands of Mrs. Portheris rose up and clamoured to be avenged, and Dicky told me afterward