Chapter 17 Tom Swift and his Chest of Secrets by Victor Appleton
OUT OF THE CISTERN
“Where am I and what happened?” Tom asked himself. Rather futile and hackneyed questions, but they were just the points Tom desired to be informed about.
Much easier it was to reconstruct what had happened than it was to answer the first question as to where he was. Beyond the fact that he was in some dark place—very dark—and that it was damp and noisome, Tom could not imagine where he had been taken.
It was coming back to him now, and he helped his dazed brain to clear by talking aloud to himself. He realized that he was alone—or so he judged—for his first exclamation after recovering consciousness had brought forth no answer.
“Let’s see now,” mused the youth. “I knocked off Barsky’s wig and false beard and saw that he had close-cropped red hair. This makes him, beyond doubt, the scoundrel who attacked dad and the others. It also makes me think this Barsky is a prison bird, or has been at one time.
“He got mad when I fired him, and he came at me. I remember that, but it’s the last thing I do remember. He must have given me a crack on the head with a black-jack and knocked me out. It happened in the little passage near the experiment room, and no one saw it. Then he must have tied me up and carried me here—wherever this is.”
And Tom would have given a goodly sum, just then, to know exactly where he was. It did not seem possible that Barsky could have packed him into an automobile and carried him far away.
“He would have been seen by some one in the office or the shops,” reasoned Tom. “Therefore I must be hidden in some place not very far from my own home or the office. Now where is there a locality like this around our shops?”
Having thus considerably narrowed the inquiry, Tom further simplified it by a process of elimination. He sensed that he was in some place below the level of the ground. The close, stuffy atmosphere of his prison proved that.
“And it’s damp, too,” mused Tom. “It has held water! Ah, I have it—the old cistern under the first shop we built!”
When the Swift Construction Company was first started it was in a modest way, with only a small shop. Beneath this Mr. Swift had had built a large cistern for the storage of rain water, which, because of its softness, or non-chemical quality, was needed in his experiments. Later, when the business grew and the little old shop was abandoned, the cistern was emptied and closed, a larger storage tank being built in another place.
Entrance to the abandoned cistern could be gained by a trap door in the floor of the shop, but as Tom remembered there was no ladder in the reservoir.
“Barsky must have lowered me in here with a rope,” thought Tom. “Then he simply dropped the cover on and ran away. It was clever of him. Now he has time to work some of his plans, I suppose. This is all a deep-laid plot, and it’s been in the making some time. I wish I had taken dad’s advice and never hired that fellow! However, it’s too late to think about that now! I must get myself out of here and stop him—that is, if it isn’t too late!”
Tom managed to squirm to a sitting position. This made him feel better, but it sent the blood again rushing into his sore head, and for a moment or two he felt dizzy and sick. This passed, however, and he began to reason matters out.
“I could shout my lungs out,” reasoned Tom, “and no one would hear me. But, wait! I remember something. The tunnel! It’s all right! I can get out if I can free myself!”
With the further clearing of his brain it occurred to Tom that some years before he and his father had dug a tunnel, leading from a distant hillside into the cistern. The tunnel passed beneath the foundations of the old shop and the passage was used to conduct some experiments in the action of air currents. Aeroplane models, as one knows, are tested in what is called a wind tunnel, and the Swift underground tunnel was one of the first of these ever made. It had not been used for a long time, however, and the end, opening under the hill, had been boarded up.
“But if I can get loose I can walk along the tunnel and I guess I can manage to kick down those boards,” thought Tom. “However, the question is, can I get loose?”
At first it seemed that this must be answered in the negative. So firmly had Barsky made the bonds that Tom tugged and strained for some time, to his no small discomfort, without any effect.
At last, however, he felt the ropes around his hands, which had been tied behind his back, giving a little. This encouraged him, and, gritting his teeth to keep back involuntary exclamations of pain, he strained harder. It was out of his power to break them, but the ropes stretched a little, and at last, after hard work, he managed to get his hands free.
But such was the cruel force with which the cords had been knotted and so long had they been on the captive’s wrists that, even though his hands were now free, he had little use of them. They were numb and helpless. Like limbs “asleep” and, as Tom said afterward, they felt as big as sofa cushions.
They soon, however, began to tingle as the blood resumed its circulation, and with the sensation of pins and needles pricking his fingers, Tom began to feel that he could use his hands.
This he did in loosening the cords around his feet, and in a few minutes more he was able to stand up, free to move about and take up the matter of getting out of the cistern.
It was as dark as a pocket in there, and Tom wished he had with him a small electric flashlight. Almost always he carried one, but this time, just when it was most needed, he was without it.
“But I guess I can go by feeling,” he told himself. “This cistern isn’t so immense. It’s circular, and no matter where I start on the wall I’m bound to come to the tunnel opening some time or other. I guess it’s a mighty good thing,” grimly thought Tom, “that there’s no water in this place. No thanks to Barsky, I guess, that there isn’t. He’d have dropped me in just the same, I believe.”
Tom, with outstretched hands, began to grope his way about in the dark cistern. He knew there were no holes in the floor, so he did not fear a fall, and there was nothing with which he could collide. From the length of time it took him to reach the wall, Tom judged that he had been lying about in the center of the old water-container. This proved his theory that Barsky had lowered him into it from the trap door above.
Once Tom was in contact with the circular wall of the cistern, it was an easy matter to follow it around until he came to the tunnel opening.
“This way out!” exclaimed the young inventor grimly. “I wonder what time it is and how long I’ve been in here. Maybe they’re looking for me up above. And yet, perhaps they think I’m just off on one of my trips.”
Tom started into the black tunnel. It had been several years since it had been put to use, and the youth had not entered it during all that time. Consequently he proceeded a bit cautiously, for he did not know but what there might be holes here and there in the floor of it.
After about five minutes of careful progress Tom felt on his face a cool current of air.
“I’m coming to the boarded-up opening!” he exclaimed exultingly.
The boards did not fit tightly, and through one of the larger cracks Tom caught a glint of light.
“But it’s starlight!” he cried. “It’s night! I must have been in that cistern all day—maybe two days! Though I guess not two days or I’d feel hungrier and thirstier than I am.”
Pushing on the boards, Tom felt them give a little, and he knew they must have rotted away from contact with the damp earth. He pushed harder and kicked on them, thus knocking down the barrier.
In rushed the glorious fresh air, and the young inventor saw that he was looking out on a field some distance away from his home. It was night, and the stars were glittering. Also, not far away from the tunnel entrance another light was gleaming. It was the light of a lantern set on the ground.
By the gleam of the lantern on the ground Tom could see a figure moving about and, seemingly, digging in the earth.
“This is queer,” mused the lad. “I wonder who that is? If it’s Barsky, maybe he’s digging to try to get at some of my secrets. Or maybe he thinks I’m dead and he’s making a grave for me.”
Tom dismissed this gruesome thought with a laugh, and walked forward a few paces, the better to see who was doing that queer midnight digging by lantern light.
Some noise Tom made attracted the notice of the digger. He looked toward the tunnel opening, and then Tom exclaimed:
“Good night! It’s Rad!”
At that moment, the colored man, with a cry of fear, made a jump, knocking over and extinguishing the lantern while he shouted:
“De ghost! De ghost! I’s a daid darkey! I’s done seen a h’ant! Oh, lawzy, lawzy! De ghost am after me!”