Tarzan the Lost Adventure by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Author:Edgar Rice Burroughs
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: www.gnivek.com, www.freemegalink.com
Publisher: FML Books
Published: 2011-07-27T19:48:58+00:00

Chapter 14

WHEN HUNT FELL, the torch fell before him, a bright star speeding into dark infinity. Hunt, seeing the torch go fast and away, knew he was lost. Then he struck something solid and the breath exploded out of him.

As he lay there aching, he could still see the torch falling, and for a moment he was confused, then realized what had happened.

He had stepped into a chasm and had landed on a ledge, his head hanging off of it, and he could see the torch falling. Falling. Falling. And then it vanished. Either it had gone out or struck bottom. Hunt suspected the first.

Hunt lay where he had fallen for a time, trying to regain his breath and decide what to do. He was in total darkness, and he feared any move he might make would send him after his torch, yet he could not remain here.

Carefully, Hunt eased to his knees. His ribs ached, but nothing seemed broken. He backed along the ledge until he came up against a rock wall. In backing, he touched his spear and recovered it.

Hunt put the spear across his knee and applied pressure with his hands until the shaft cracked. With this done, he removed his shut and wrapped it carefully around the broken stick. He used the knife-end of his broken spear to hack at the wadded shirt, fraying it. He recovered the flint from his pocket, set about creating a spark. Since he did all of this in the darkness by feel, it took a long time, but eventually a spark jumped onto the shirt and caught. Hunt blew on the spark and it went out. He tried again, was finally rewarded with a blaze. Hunt realized his torch would not last long, so he lifted it high so he could see how far he had fallen.

Twelve feet!

He had been lucky. It was a miracle the impact had not broken his ribs, though they certainly felt deeply bruised.

Hunt tried to find a way to climb up, but the wall was straight and slick as glass. Checking to his left he saw that his ledge wound into an opening in the rock. He proceeded in that direction. As he did, the flame on the torch rippled. There was a strong current of air coming from the shaft.

Stepping into the tunnel, Hunt paused for a moment, considering. The torch had little life left. He could either go back to the ledge and try and scale that slick wall, or he could see where this led. The latter seemed the only logical decision.

He had gone only a few steps when the torchlight revealed open clay gutters running along the sides of the tunnel wall-man-made gutters. He held the torch over one of the gutters. It was full of some kind of black liquid. Stagnant water perhaps. It was clogged with thousands of insects. Hunt stuck a finger into the blackness, rubbed it between thumb and forefinger, sniffed it.

Oil. The gutters were filled with oil.

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