WAITING IN THE DARK
Just how long Tom Swift remained unconscious he himself did not know. It
may have been several hours, for when he came to himself he felt a
curious stiffness about his muscles as if he had lain for some time on
the damp ground.
And he was on the ground—a fact he ascertained by feeling about with
his hands, his fingers encountering damp, packed earth and the smooth
surface of stones set in the soil.
“Where in the world am I, and what happened?” thought Tom, as soon as he
could collect his senses enough to do any thinking. “Gee, but I sure do
feel queer!”
There was a sickish taste in his mouth—a sense of sweetness, such as he
remembered followed a slight operation he had undergone some years
before when an anæsthetic had been given him.
“They doped me all right—that’s what they did,” mused Tom. “Ether,
chloroform, or something like that. It knocked me out. But I’m beginning
to feel all right again—no headache or anything like that. But what
does it all mean, and where am I?”
Those were questions not easily answered.
While Tom Swift is trying to collect his senses and to remember, in
their sequence, the events which led up to his queer predicament, may I
take just a moment of your time, if you are a new reader, to tell you
who Tom was?
The first book of this series, “Tom Swift and His Motor Cycle,”
introduces you to the young inventor. His father, Barton Swift, was a
widower, living in the old homestead at Shopton on Lake Carlopa. The
Swift home was on the outskirts of the town and in a building not far
from the house Barton Swift began work on a series of inventions which
were destined to make him and his son famous. Tom’s mother was dead, but
Mrs. Baggert, the housekeeper, looked well after the material welfare of
Tom and his father.
In due time Tom began to follow in his father’s footsteps, working at
small inventions until, when a sturdy youth, he became possessed of a
motorcycle. He bought the machine of an eccentric individual named
Wakefield Damon, who lived in the neighboring town of Waterfield. Mr.
Damon set out to learn to ride his new machine.
“But bless my porous plaster!” the queer man would exclaim in telling
the story, “I never thought the contraption was going to climb trees!”
Which it did, or tried to, because Mr. Damon did not know how to manage
it. The result was that the rider was injured and the motorcycle badly
smashed and Tom, near whose home the accident occurred, became the owner
of the machine.
How he repaired it, added some improvements, and what he did with the
machine are fully set forth in the book. It was the beginning of a long
friendship with Mr. Damon, and also the real start of Tom’s inventive
career.
Those of you who have followed him in his successes, from his motor boat
to “Tom Swift’s Chest of Secrets,”—the volume immediately preceding
this one—need not be told of Tom’s activities. He had made some
wonderful pieces of apparatus and had had some startling adventures. In
some of these his father and Mr. Damon had shared. So, also, had Ned
Newton, Tom’s closest friend and now the treasurer of the Swift
Construction Company.
Mary Nestor, of whom Ned had spoken, was a beautiful girl whom Tom hoped
to marry some day, and Ned Newton was interested in a similar manner in
Mary’s friend, Helen Morton.
As Tom sat there in the darkness, trying to puzzle out where he was and
how he had gotten there, his thought flashed to Mary.
“I wonder what she’ll think?” he mused. “I’d better get to a telephone
and explain. Let’s see. I was coming back from town and I saw some
fellow sneaking along behind the bushes. I met Ned. I went down a flight
of stairs in a hole—though how they could be there and I not know it,
is more than I can fathom. Then they doped me. But who did it and why, I
don’t know. I’ll soon find out, though. Wonder how long I’ve been here?
Feels like a week, I’m so stiff. But I’m not hurt, thank goodness!”
Tom stretched out his arms in the darkness. They responded to the action
of his muscles. But when he tried to get up and walk—well, he simply
could not!
“Chained fast!” cried Tom, aloud. His hands had sought his left ankle
when he found that something held him fast there, and his fingers had
come in contact with a chain.
For a moment he felt a sinking sensation. To be chained fast in the
dark, at the bottom of some cave or dungeon, located he knew not where,
was enough to take the heart out of any one. But not for long did Tom
Swift give way to despair.
He gave a vigorous tug to the chain about his ankle. After all, it might
only be lying across it or loosely twisted. But it needed only one
effort on his part to loosen the links to let him know that he was bound
fast. Whoever had put the chain on his ankle had done so with serious
intentions of holding the young inventor captive.
“Well, this is worse and more of it!” he mused grimly. “What does it all
mean? It can’t be a plot to kidnap me. No one knew I was coming across
the lots, for I didn’t know it myself until the last minute. And seeing
that man sneaking along, discovering the secret stairs—it was all a
series of accidents. Though it’s likely to prove a serious accident for
me if I can’t get loose.”
Tom was nothing if not practical, and first he felt about with his hands
to determine the exact nature of what it was that held him fast. He
discovered, by the sense of touch, that something in the nature of a
handcuff was snapped about his ankle. To this cuff, or leg-iron, was
attached a chain. By following this, link by link, Tom found that the
chain was made fast to a ring of iron which, in turn, was sunk into the
stone side wall of the cave or tunnel in which he now found himself.
How far he was removed from the bottom of the flight of secret steps
where he had been made unconscious, he did not know, any more than he
knew where he was.
Having discovered what it was that held him fast and the nature of the
chain and its fastenings, Tom, who had risen to his feet, stood silent a
moment, listening. It was very black and very still in the cave, if such
it was, and from the earthy, damp smell he concluded that he must be
underground, or at least in some vault or cellar.
By test Tom found that he could move about five feet, such being the
length of the chain. The leg-iron had been snapped or riveted about his
ankle outside of his trousers. It was not tight enough to cause any
pain, but it was snug enough to be impossible of removal.
“They’ve got me as tight as an animal in a trap!” grimly exclaimed the
youth, when, by a series of tugs, he ascertained how securely the end of
the chain was fast in the rocky wall. “Just like a trap, or a prisoner
in an old-time dungeon!” bitterly reflected the young man. “All it needs
to make a moving picture film is some beautiful maiden to come to my
rescue with a file——”
Tom’s spoken words (for he was talking aloud to himself) came to a
sudden end as he clapped a hand to the pocket of his coat.
“I’ve got ’em!” he fairly shouted, and he drew out a small paper parcel
in which were two keen files. They were part of the purchases made just
before stumbling on the mysterious man and finding the steps in the
queer opening.
“Files—the hardest and best made!” he told himself. “They’ll cut
through anything but a diamond. Luck’s with me, after all. They didn’t
know I had these! Oh, boy!”
Everything seemed changed now! Though he was held fast, though he was in
some secret dungeon, hope sang a song of joy in his heart.
For a moment Tom debated with himself as to the best end of the chain at
which to begin filing. It would be more comfortable with that leg-iron
off his ankle, but by feeling it in the darkness he could tell that it
was broad and thick. It would take some time for even the keen, hard
file to cut through it.
“I’ll file through one of the links close to the leg-iron,” decided Tom.
“That won’t leave much to carry around, and it won’t take long to cut
through a link—that is, unless they’re made of case-hardened steel.”
But the chain was of the ordinary sort, made of soft iron, and it did
not take the young inventor long, practiced as he was in the use of
tools, to file apart one of the links. True it was not easy in the
darkness, and, more than once, the file slipped and cut Tom’s hands or
fingers, for he changed from left to right and back to left in using the
file, having taught himself to be ambidextrous in many operations.
At last he could feel that the link was nearly severed and then,
inserting the small ends of the two files in it, he pried them apart.
This leverage broke the thin remaining bit of iron and Tom was free.
That is, he was free to move about as he pleased, but he was still
within the dark cave, and where it was he could not imagine.
“I’ve got to feel my way about,” he told himself. “It’s as dark as the
inside of a pocket.”
So dark was it that Tom had to tread cautiously and with outstretched
hands lest he bump into some obstruction. Whether he was moving toward
the steps down which he had come or in the opposite direction, Tom had
no means of knowing. His sense of touch alone guided him.
He could feel that he was walking along a tunnel, but the size of it he
could only guess at. Then, suddenly, on making an elbow turn, he saw,
glimmering in the distance, a faint light. It was the light of day, Tom
knew, and by that he realized that he had been held captive all night.
“That makes it bad,” he mused. “Dad will have done a lot of worrying
about me, I’m afraid. But I guess I’ll soon be out of here.”
Then, to his ears, came the murmur of voices—voices strange to him. So
faint was the light in the distance that it was of no service to him
where he stood waiting in the darkness; waiting for he knew not what.
The voices increased in loudness, showing that the speakers were
approaching. Then he heard footsteps echoing strangely in the hollow
tunnel.
“If there’s going to be a fight I’d better get ready for it,” Tom told
himself fiercely. He stooped and began feeling about on the ground for a
loose rock or a club. But he could find nothing. Then like a flash it
came to him.
“One of the files! They’re pretty sharp on the handle end. As good as a
knife! I’ll use it like a knife if I have to,” he mused desperately.
He drew one of the files from his pocket, grasped it firmly, and waited
in the darkness for what was to happen next.
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