"The man flood the house," said he, "but no sure he get to ship. If he drown, Czerny know nothing. I say turn out the lamp--wait!"
"As true a word as the night has spoken," said I; "if Kess Denton does not reach the boats, they won't hear the story. We'll keep it close enough, lads, and Captain Nepeen will learn it soon enough. Do you whistle, Dolly, and get an answer. I hope to God it is all well with them still."
He whistled across the sea, and after a long minute of waiting a distant voice cried, "All's well!" For the hour at least our comrades were safe. Should we say the same of them when daylight came?
The dark fell with greater intensity as the dawn drew near. I thought that it typified our own black hour, when it seemed that fate had nothing left for us but a grave beneath the seas, or the eternal sleep on the island shore.
Another hour passed, and the dawn was nearer. I did not know then (though I know now) what kept Czerny's crew in the shadows, or why we heard nothing of them. Once, indeed, in the far distance where the yacht lay anchored, gunshots were fired, and were answered from some boat lying southward by the island; but no other message of the night was vouchsafed to us, no other omen to be heard. In the gloom of the darkened house women watched, men kept the vigil and prayed for the day. Would the light never come; would that breaking East never speed its joyous day? Ah! who could tell? Who, in the agony of waiting, ever thinks aright or draws the truthful picture?
There was no new attack, I say, nor any sure news from the caverns below. From time to time men went to the stairs-head and watched the seas washing green and slimy in the corridors, or spoke of them beating upon the very steps of the great hall and threatening to rise up and up until they engulfed us all and conquered even the citadel we held. Nevertheless, iron gates held them back. Not vainly had Czerny's master-mind foreseen such a misfortune as this. Those tremendous doors which divided the upper house from its fellow were stronger than any sluice-gates, more sure against the water's advance. We held the upper house; it was ours while we could breathe in it or find life's sustenance there.