Halfway across, a piton skreeked as it pulled out from its hole.
Joe was motionless for a moment. Then he extended a long arm to the rope on the side nearest him from the next piton.
The loosened piton came free with another screech. Joe dropped down, clinging to the rope, and swung like an almost-stopped pendulum.
“Hang on, Joe!” Burton said.
Then he screamed with the rest of the party as the second wedge tore loose and the others followed.
Bellowing, shrouded in white cloths, Joe Miller dropped for the second time into the dark sea.
SECTION 13
In the Dark Tower
44
BURTON WEPT WITH THE OTHERS. HE’D LIKED THE HUGE MAN, had perhaps loved him. With his death the group had lost much courage, much morale-boosting, much strength.
After a while they turned around, cautiously, and continued the slow still dangerous descent. When six hours passed, they stopped to eat and sleep. The latter was difficult, since they had to lie on one side and make sure they didn’t roll over while sleeping. They put their pistols against their backs so these would, they hoped, be so uncomfortable that they’d wake them immediately. Excretion was not easy either. The men could face the outer side of the ledge to urinate, though the updraft sometimes caused the liquid to blow back on their cloths. The women had to hang their posteriors over the ledge and hope for the best, which often didn’t happen.
Alice was the only modest one. She required that the others look away while she was relieving herself. Even then, their near presence made her inhibited. Sometimes, though, the mists thickened enough to give her privacy.
They were a gloomy party, still numbed by Joe Miller’s death. Also, they could not help dwelling on the strong possibility that the Ethicals had found the cave and sealed it.
The sound of waves crashing against the base became louder. They descended into the thick clouds; the cliff face and the ledge became even wetter. Finally, Burton, in the lead, was wet by spray and the sea boomed around him.
He halted and sent his lantern beam ahead of him. The edge ran into the black waters. Ahead was the outcropping, and, if what Paheri had said was true, the mouth of the cave would be on its other side.
He called back to those behind Alice, telling them what his light had revealed. He walked into the water, which was only knee deep. Apparently, the shallow ledge went a long way out since the waves were weak here, though powerful on both sides not far away. The water was very cold, seeming to turn his legs into icy clumps.
He came back to the black projection and worked his way around it. Alice came closely behind him. “Is there a cave?” Her voice trembled. He shot the beam ahead to his right. His heart was hammering and not just from the shock of the cold water. He breathed out, “Ah!”
There it was, the long-imagined hole at the base of the mountain. It was arched and low and would require that even Nur stoop to get through it. But it was wide enough for the boats which Paheri had described to pass through it.
Burton shouted back the good news. Croomes, fifth in line, screamed, “Hallelujah!”
However, Burton was not as exultant as he sounded. The cave could still be here, but the boats might not be.
He led Alice along the rope still connected to her belt and bent down to enter the mouth. A few feet inside, a smooth stone floor sloped upward at a 30-degree angle, the hollow broadened, and the ceiling rose to twenty feet. When they were all gathered inside, he ordered that they disconnect the rope. They shouldn’t need it now.
He shone his light on their faces, pale and tired-looking but eager. Gilgamesh was on his far right, and Ah Qaaq stood on the left behind the rest. If Burton had not abandoned his plan to seize the two, the time to do so would be near. But he had decided to improvise when he had to.
He turned and led them up the floor to a tunnel. It curved gently to the right for over three hundred feet, and the air became warmer as they advanced. Before they got to its end, they saw light.