Flashman And The Tiger

We were alone, in an enormous cavern of what looked like limestone, grey stone at any rate, but with an odd sheen to its towering walls. We were at one end, close by the black mouth of a tunnel from which ran wooden rails bearing a couple of ancient wheeled bogie trucks; the rails ran for about thirty yards into the cave to what looked like a cleft in the floor, and there must have been a bridge once, for I could see that the rails continued on the other side of the cleft before being lost in the gloom. The place was like some cathedral made by nature, huge and empty and utterly silent, and staring up I saw that high overhead there was a fissure in the roof fringed by a tangle of growth from the world outside, and this was the only source of light, glistening dimly on those gigantic smooth curving walls. The floor of the cavern was smooth too, and innocent of loose rocks or rubble, as though some giant housekeeper had swept the great chamber clean.

But the wonder of the place, that made me catch my breath even in my groggy condition, was the little lake that covered almost half the cavern floor on the far side away from the rails. Very well, ’twas only water, a natural bath in the stone, but never was water so still or clear or silent. The surface was like glass, extending perhaps thirty yards in length by twenty across to the far wall, and in its crystal depths, undisturbed by current or eddy, you could make out every detail of the stone bottom ten feet down, as though no water had been there at all. No fish could have swum in it, or weeds grown; it was immaculate, like some enchanted mere of fairy tale, an ice-witch’s mirror in the heart of a magic mountain.

Only by the tunnel mouth where I lay were there signs of human occupation: a rough stone fireplace and utensils, palliasses and camp-beds, plain chairs and table, a couple of packing-cases, and a litter of stores and gear. But like ourselves, these worldly things seemed out of place and dwarfed in the awful majesty of the cavern. The cold was fit to freeze you to the bone.

"You’re in an old salt-mine in the Saltzkammergut, in the mountains above Ischl,"[19] says Willem. "Jolly little tomb, ain’t it? Hark-away!" He had raised his voice, and the echo came back in an eerie whisper, "harkaway … away …. away …", fading ever so softly in the unseen reaches of the cavern. He stood cocking an appreciative ear, very trim in riding boots, breeches, and shooting jacket, and none the worse, it seemed, for the free-for-all shooting match which was the last thing I remembered.

"We’re near the surface here," says he, "but God knows how far the tunnels go below. The place hasn’t been worked for years. D’ye know, when I was a nipper I pictured salt-mines as hellish places where slaves with red-rimmed eyes waded knee-deep in the stuff. But it’s rather grand and spooky, don’t you think? Splendid bolt-hole, too, for clandestine plotters like the Holnup. My lads were camped here for a week, but I’ve had to send ’em off now, thanks to you." He perched on a packing-case, cradling his knee, and gave me his quizzy look. "When did you twig I was the fox at the hen-roost, then?"

"Cut me loose first!" croaks I, but he only grinned and repeated the question, so I told him about finding the tampered cartridges, and he swore and slapped his thigh, laughing.

"I’ll be damned! That’s what comes o' bein' too clever by half—oh, and bein' in awe of your fearsome reputation! Ironic, ain’t it? I gave you a harmless pistol by way of insurance, but if I’d given you a loaded one, Franz-Josef would have been with his fathers by now. Or if you’d come on the scene a minute later, even … oh, aye, we had the lock picked and I was about to go aloft when you arrived with your little snickersnee, curse you, and then that damned sergeant and his sentries, and we had to shoot our way clear, and lost two good men—one of ’em your pal Gunther, you’ll be desolated to learn. Ah, well, c’est la guerre!"

You’d have thought he was describing a rag in the dormitory, chuckling with hardly a sign of irritation. Oh, he was Rudi’s boy all right, cool as a trout and regarding me with amusement.

"So there it is!" cries he. "Franz-Josef lives on, two of my boys don’t, there ain’t a hope of a return match with half a regiment round the place by now, I imagine—supposin' F-J hasn’t decamped for Vienna already. The conspiracy is kaput, I’ve had to disperse the best band of night-runners I ever hope to see, and four weeks of dam' good plannin' have gone down the bogs." He jumped down from his seat, and stood before me, hands on hips. "Yes, sir, the guv’nor was right. You truly are an inconvenient son-of-a-bitch. Still … no hard feelin’s, what? Not on my side, leastways."