The stairs were still sharp cut and little worn, but Elzevir paid great care to his feet, lest he should slip on the ferns and mosses with which they were overgrown.  When we reached the brambles he met them with his back, and though I heard the thorns tearing in his coat, he shoved them aside with his broad shoulders, and screened my dangling leg from getting caught.  Thus he came safe without stumble to the bottom of the pit.

When we got there all was dark, but he stepped off into a narrow opening on the right hand, and walked on as if he knew the way.  I could see nothing, but perceived that we were passing through endless galleries cut in the solid rock, high enough, for the most part, to allow of walking upright, but sometimes so low as to force him to bend down and carry me in a very constrained attitude.  Only twice did he set me down at a turning, while he took out his tinder-box and lit a match; but at length the darkness became less dark, and I saw that we were in a large cave or room, into which the light came through some opening at the far end.  At the same time I felt a colder breath and fresh salt smell in the air that told me we were very near the sea.

CHAPTER 11

THE SEA-CAVE

The dull loneness, the black shade,
That these hanging vaults have made: 
The strange music of the waves
Beating on these hollow caves—­Wither

He set me down in one corner, where was some loose dry silver-sand upon the floor, which others had perhaps used for a resting-place before.  ‘Thou must lie here for a month or two, lad,’ he said; ’tis a mean bed, but I have known many worse, and will get straw tomorrow if I can, to better it.’

I had eaten nothing all day, nor had Elzevir, yet I felt no hunger, only a giddiness and burning thirst like that which came upon me when I was shut in the Mohune vault.  So ’twas very music to me to hear a pat and splash of water dropping from the roof into a little pool upon the floor, and Elzevir made a cup out of my hat and gave a full drink of it that was icy-cool and more delicious than any smuggled wine of France.

And after that I knew little that happened for ten days or more, for fever had hold of me, and as I learnt afterwards, I talked wild and could scarce be restrained from jumping up and loosing the bindings that Elzevir had put upon my leg.  And all that time he nursed me as tenderly as any mother could her child, and never left the cave except when he was forced to seek food.  But after the fever passed it left me very thin, as I could see from hands and arms, and weaker than a baby; and I used to lie the whole day, not thinking much, nor troubling about anything, but eating what was given me and drawing a quiet pleasure from the knowledge that strength was gradually returning.  Elzevir had found a battered sea-chest up on Peveril Point, and from the side of it made splints to set