CHAPTER XII.
PRISONERS OF NATURE.
"Dick!"
"Leander!"
"Oh, my side!"
"Oh, my leg!"
"Are you seriously hurt?"
"I—I don't know."
"I've had all the wind knocked out of me."
"Ditto with me. What a tumble to take!"
"What kind of a place is this?"
"A hole—a big, deep, dark hole. One of the caves, perhaps."
"Do you think it's a—a bear's den, or something like that?"
"No, I don't. I reckon it's just a common, everyday hole, or cave. The question is, how are we going to get out?"
"To get out?"
"That's what I said."
"Climb out, of course."
"That's easy enough to say, but just look up and see how far we are from the top."
They looked up. The hole was all of thirty-five or forty feet deep, and from ten to fifteen feet across. The sides were of dirt and rocks, covered here and there with wet moss.
Luckily they had landed on a pile of half-decayed leaves and tree branches, otherwise they must have been seriously injured. The rushes and some dirt had fallen all around them.
For a full minute neither spoke. During that time they examined the walls of the hole.
"We've got to get out somehow," said Dick, at last. "But to climb that wall seems impossible."
"Let us try it, anyway," returned Leander.
He found what he considered the best place, where several jagged rocks projected, and by digging his hands into the soil succeeded in pulling himself up a distance of eight or ten feet.
"Look out!"
As Dick uttered the cry he leaped back out of danger.
Down came several of the rocks, accompanied, by a great mass of dirt.
Leander followed, to roll over on his back on top of the pile.
"Great Cæsar!" gasped the fallen one. "I didn't think I was going to pull down the whole wall over me."
"Don't try that again, or we may be buried alive," cautioned Dick.
"I don't think I will try it," was the rueful answer. "But, Dick, we must get out."
"That's true."
"Let us yell for help."
"I don't believe anybody is within hearing distance."
"Never mind, we can try it."
Both raised their voices, not once, but half a dozen times. Then they listened intently.
"Did you hear anything?" asked Dick.
"Not a sound."
Their faces fell. What were they to do next?
"If we only had a rope," sighed Leander.
"Or a long pole."
They walked around the flooring of the hole dismally. Then Dick drew out his watch and his face brightened.
"The fifteen minutes are up. They'll be hunting for us presently."
He was right; the others of the expedition were both hunting and calling, but nothing was seen or heard of them.
Led by old Jacob the party went through the orange grove, but came up a goodly distance to the left of the hole in which the poor boys were prisoners of nature.
Another quarter of an hour went by. To Dick and Leander it seemed an age. Again they cried out, but the top of the hole being smaller than the bottom, their voices were as muffled as though they were prisoners in a huge bottle.
"This is truly a pickle," groaned Dick, as he threw himself on one of the fallen rocks. "I must say, I'm stumped."
"So am I."
"I'm going to try throwing stones out of the hole," said Dick, after another interval of silence. "Anything is better than doing nothing."
Both boys began to shy out all of the stones they could pick up.
"We're really making the hole deeper," observed Leander, when suddenly the opening above them was darkened, and they saw a negro boy looking down at them with eyes as big as saucers.
"Hullo, help us out!" cried Leander, eagerly; but at the sound of their voices the negro boy took to his heels as fast as' he could go.
"He's gone!"
"Perhaps he has gone for a rope."
"More than likely he was scared to death. He'll go home and say he saw a ghost."
Another quarter of an hour went by. Then they heard footsteps approaching, and two stalwart Caribs appeared. Behind them came the little boy, trembling with fear.
"Hullo!" repeated Leander. "Help us out, will you?"
"Un Americano!" muttered one of the Caribs. "How you git down dar?" he asked, in broken English.
"We fell through the rushes."
"Urn—bad place dis to walk."
"So we have discovered. Will you kindly help us out?"
Both of the negroes nodded. Then they withdrew, to consult one with another. Presently they came back.
"How much give if pull you out de hole?" demanded the one who had previously spoken.
"Give?" came from both boys simultaneously.
"Ye-as, Americano rich boys, not so?"
"No, we are not rich," replied Dick in disgust. "But we'll pay you, don't fear."
"How much give?"
"Oh, I don't know."
"We'll give you a dollar," added Leander. "Gosh, but they believe in making money, don't they," he added, in a whisper.
"No take dollar," came from the Porto Rican. "Take ten dollar."
"Ten dollars!" gasped Dick, not so much over the amount of the sum, but because of the "cheek" in asking it. "You don't want much, do you?"
"We'll give two dollars—we can't pay any more," said Leander. But at this the Caribs shook their woolly heads. They were bound to make money out of the Americans' misfortune. Such a thing as being generous never entered their heads.
"Ten dollar, or we go away again," said the one who could speak broken English.
"We'll give you three dollars," said Dick.
"No, ten dollar."
To this the Caribs stuck, and at last the boys promised them the amount.
"But you have got to pull us out first," said Leander.
Even to this the negroes demurred, and in the end it was agreed to pay five dollars first, and the second five when they were safe.
Dick took some Spanish money and tied it in a handkerchief, which he threw up so that the largest of the Caribs could catch it. Then one of the natives ran off to get a long rope.
Getting up out of the hole by the aid of the rope was comparatively easy. As soon as the youths were on the top of the earth once more, each of the natives caught a boy and held him.
"Now pay udder five dollars to Bumbum," grinned the leader of the pair.
"Is your name Bumbum?" demanded Dick.
"Yes, señor."
"All right, Bumbum, here is the money, and let me say that I think you about the meanest Porto Rican on the island."
"Bumbum must earn his living, señor."
"I don't call this earning a living. What do you do, as a general rule? Lie about to squeeze strangers?"
At this the Carib's face darkened. "No insult me, or you be sorry!" he cried, and made a movement as if to draw some weapon from his bosom.
"Come, let us be going," cried Leander, in alarm.
"I'm ready," was Dick's reply, and they hurried off in one direction, while Bumbum and his companion, accompanied by the negro boy, stalked off in another. Soon the two parties were lost to sight of each other; but that was not the last, by any means, that was seen of the Wily Caribs.