A Jolly Fellowship, Frank Richard Stockton [best way to read an ebook TXT] 📗

[207]

There was a place left for the date, which I suppose he had forgotten. I made no remark about this inscription, for I did not know exactly what remark was needed; but the next morning I called him "Rectus," just the same as ever, for I knew he had printed our names on the box to show me that he wanted to let me off my promise. I guess the one time I called him Colbert was enough for him.

When we came down stairs to breakfast, talking to each other like common people, it was better than most shows to see Corny's face. She was standing at the front door, not far from the stairs, and it actually seemed as if a candle had been lighted inside of her. Her face shone.

I know I felt first-rate, and I think Rectus must have felt pretty much the same, for his tongue rattled away at a rate that wasn't exactly usual with him. There was no mistaking Corny's feelings.

After breakfast, when we all got together to talk over the plans of the day,—a thing we hadn't done for what seemed to me about a week,—we found out—or rather remembered—that there were a lot of things in Nassau that we hadn't seen yet, and that we wouldn't miss for anything. We had been wasting time terribly lately, and the weather was now rather better for going about than it had been since we came to the place.

We agreed to go to Fort Charlotte that morning, and see the subterranean rooms and passage-ways, and all the underground dreariness of which we had heard so much. The fort was built about a hundred[208] years ago, and has no soldiers in it. To go around and look at the old forts in this part of the world might make a person believe the millennium had come. They seem just about as good as ever they were, but they're all on a peace-footing. Rectus said they were played out, but I'd rather take my chances in Fort Charlotte, during a bombardment, than in some of the new-style forts that I have seen in the North. It is almost altogether underground, in the solid calcareous, and what could any fellow want better than that? The cannon-balls and bombs would have to plow up about an acre of pretty solid rock, and plow it deep, too, before they would begin to scratch the roof of the real strongholds of this fort. At least, that's the way I looked at it.

We made up a party and walked over. It's at the western end of the town, and about a mile from the hotel. Mr. and Mrs. Chipperton were with us, and a lady from Chicago, and Mr. Burgan. The other yellow-legs went out riding with his wife, but I think he wanted to go with us. The fort is on the top of a hill, and a colored shoemaker is in command. He sits and cobbles all day, except when visitors come, and then he shows them around. He lighted a lamp and took us down into the dark, quiet rooms and cells, that were cut out of the solid rock, down deep into the hill, and it was almost like being in a coal-mine, only it was a great deal cleaner and not so deep. But it seemed just as much out of the world. In some of the rooms there were bats hanging to the ceilings. We didn't disturb them. One of the rooms was[209] called the governor's room. There wasn't any governor there, of course, but it had been made by the jolly old earl who had the place cut out,—and who was governor here at the time,—as a place where he might retire when he wanted to be private. It was the most private apartment I ever saw. This earl was the same old Dunmore we used to study about in our histories. He came over here when the Revolution threw him out of business in our country. He had some good ideas about chiselling rock.

This part of the fort was so extremely subterranean and solemn that it wasn't long before Mrs. Chipperton had enough of it, and we came up. It was fine to get out into the open air, and see the blue sky and the bright, sparkling water of the harbor just below us, and the islands beyond, and still beyond them the blue ocean, with everything so bright and cheerful in the sunlight. If I had been governor of this place, I should have had my private room on top of the fort, although, of course, that wouldn't do so well in times of bombardment.

But the general-in-chief did not let us off yet. He said he'd show us the most wonderful thing in the whole place, and then he took us out-of-doors again, and led us to a little shed or enclosed door-way just outside of the main part of the fort, but inside of the fortifications, where he had his bench and tools. He moved away the bench, and then we saw that it stood on a wooden trap-door. He took hold of a ring, and lifted up this door, and there was a round hole about as big as the hind wheel[210] of a carriage. It was like a well, and was as dark as pitch. When we held the lamp over it, however, we could see that there were winding steps leading down into it. These steps were cut out of the rock, as was the hole and the pillar around which the steps wound. It was all one piece. The general took his lamp and went down ahead, and we all followed, one by one. Those who were most afraid and went last had the worst of it, for the lamp wasn't a calcium light by any means, and their end of the line was a good deal in the dark. But we all got to the bottom of the well at last, and there we found a long, narrow passage leading under the very foundation or bottom floor of the whole place, and then it led outside of the fort under the moat, which was dry now, but which used to be full of water, and so, on and on, in black darkness, to a place in the side of the hill, or somewhere, where there had been a lookout. Whether there were any passages opening into this or not, I don't know, for it was dark in spite of the lamp, and we all had to walk in single file, so there wasn't much chance for exploring sidewise. When we got to the end, we were glad enough to turn around and come back. It was a good thing to see such a place, but there was a feeling that if the walls should cave in a little, or a big rock should fall from the top of the passage, we should all be hermetically canned in very close quarters. When we came out, we gave the shoemaker commander some money, and came away.

"Isn't it nice," said Corny, "that he isn't a queen,[211] to be taken care of, and we can just pay him and come away, and not have to think of him any more?"

We agreed to that, but I said I thought we ought to go and take one more look at our old queen before we left. Mrs. Chipperton, who was a really sensible woman when she had a chance, objected to this, because, she said, it would be better to let the old woman alone now. We couldn't do anything for her after we left, and it would be better to let her depend on her own exertions, now that she had got started again on that track. I didn't think that the word exertion was a very good one in Poqua-dilla's case, but I didn't argue the matter. I thought that if some of us dropped around there before we left, and gave her a couple of shillings, it would not interfere much with her mercantile success in the future.

I thought this, but Corny spoke it right out—at least, what she said amounted to pretty much the same thing.

"Well," said her mother, "we might go around there once more, especially as your father has never seen the queen at all. Mr. Chipperton, would you like to see the African queen?"

Mr. Chipperton did not answer, and his wife turned around quickly. She had been walking ahead with the Chicago lady.

"Why, where is he?" she exclaimed. We all stopped and looked about, but couldn't see him. He wasn't there. We were part way down the hill, but not far from the fort, and we stopped and looked back, and then Corny called him. I said that I would run[212] back for him, as he had probably stopped to talk with the shoemaker. Rectus and I both ran back, and Corny came with us. The shoemaker had put his bench in its place over the trap-door, and was again at work. But Mr. Chipperton was not talking to him.

"I'll tell you what I believe,"—said Corny, gasping.

But it was of no use to wait to hear what she believed. I believed it myself.

"Hello!" I cried to the shoemaker before I reached him. "Did a gentleman stay behind here?"

"I didn't see none," said the man, looking up in surprise, as we charged on him.

"Then," I cried, "he's shut down in that well! Jump up and open the door!"

The shoemaker did jump up, and we helped him move the bench, and had the trap-door open in no time. By this, the rest of the party had come back, and when Mrs. Chipperton saw the well open and no Mr. Chipperton about, she turned as white as a sheet. We could hardly wait for the man to light his lamp, and as soon as he started down the winding stairs, Rectus and I followed him. I called back to Mrs. Chipperton and the others that they need not come; we would be back in a minute and let them know. But it was of no use; they all came. We hurried on after the man with the light, and passed straight ahead through the narrow passage to the very end of it.

There stood Mr. Chipperton, holding a