Chapter Sixteen: Not Suited For Caves

Tobiah was carrying Agnes and she had her arms wrapped around his neck. Although uninjured in her fall, she had apparently rolled her ankle sometime after that. When they reached the dead end Tobiah put her down and she limped over. She threw her arms around the princess.

“Are you okay?” the princess asked.

“Oh, it was just awful,” Agnes said. She explained how Tobiah had led her through a series of passageways, how they had to crawl on their bellies under an outcropping. Agnes held her hands about two feet apart to show how much room they had. He could see the princess shudder at the idea.

 “And then, of course, I rolled my ankle, which only slowed us down even more. I am obviously not suited for caving. It’s fortunate for me that Tobiah is such a gentleman.” She gave him a little smile and Throp had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. “Oh, but there was a beautiful little part of the cave that had a hole in the ceiling. It went straight up to the surface and you could see the moonlight through it!”

Throp felt a pang of envy although he was glad to know they weren’t as far underground as it seemed. He decided not to share the story of the dead torches with them.

“So the alternate route leads you to this corridor, huh? So that means it is safe,” he said pointedly to the princess.

“But if you went down it now you would be heading in the wrong direction,” she said.

“But safely,” Throp countered. The princess ignored his jab and instead looked to the opposite corridor.

“Does that mean we’re going this way?” she asked, a note of trepidation in her voice.

“We will be,” Tobiah said. “But first we have to do a little housecleaning.” Throp looked to the girls to see if either of them understood, but they also looked confused.

“If you would please stand against the wall, just there,” Tobiah said. “This can get a little messy.” They all backed up against the cave wall to the left of the passage opening except Tobiah, who stepped just into the opening of the cave. He waved his torch back and forth, then hurled it upward. It extinguished when it hit the ground. Throp leaned forward, trying to get an idea of what he was doing. He could barely see Tobiah now and had no idea where his torch had gone.

“Do you hear that?” Throp asked. It sounded like the fluttering of wings, but Cleo was still perched on his shoulder. The sound grew louder and suddenly Tobiah darted from the passage entrance and flattened himself against the wall on the other side. All at once, a great river of bats flowed out of the cave. Agnes screamed and Throp raised his hand to his face, but the bats didn’t come near them, just poured out of passage and into the one from which Tobiah and Agnes had come. Their combined screeching was deafening. It seemed to go on forever, this streaming black mass and just as suddenly as it began, it stopped. Agnes was still screaming, crouching on the ground, her hands over her head. The princess tapped her on the shoulder and she looked up and shrieked.

“I am definitely not suited for caves!” she said and then narrowed her eyes at Tobiah. “You could have warned us!” He shrugged and gave her a cheeky grin.

“Would it help if I carried you?” he asked. 

“My ankle actually feels much better now,” she admitted.

“I’m not as worried about that, as I am your slippers,” Tobiah said. “The bats live in a nook just above there.” He pointed inside the entrance. “It gets a bit messy underneath.” Agnes pulled a face and allowed herself to be swept up by Tobiah.

“My boots will be fine,” the princess said, just as Throp wondered if he ought to offer. She was still wearing her ‘Gus’ outfit, which included a pair of ankle length boots.

The passageway was short and Throp was grateful for that, as it stunk almost more than he could bear. The ground was squishy under his boots and he held his torch high so he wouldn’t have to see exactly what he was stepping in. Tobiah hadn’t even bothered to pick his torch up from the muck. As the passage opened up to a larger but nondescript room, Throp found himself exasperated.

“You really go through all this just to deposit a bit of treasure?” Throp asked. Tobiah sighed, stopped and set down Agnes

“At least once a month,” he said. “Carrying half a dozen chests or more. You can understand now why I was ready to turn on my captain. And what’s worse, most of the men never made it past the next room. Starnes, the captain and and I did the rest of the hauling ourselves.”

“Why was that?” Throp asked.

“Because they were too afraid,” Tobiah said. Throp didn’t like the way that sounded.

“Afraid of what?” Tobiah smiled, his face looking eerie in the light of the flickering torch.

“The ghosts of course,” he said. Throp groaned and Tobiah laughed. Agnes laughed, too, but she seemed to find everything Tobiah did charming.

“And now for the last bit of work we have to do before we retire as rich men. And women, of course,” he said, winking at the princess. He gestured back at the passage exit and told Throp they needed to block it. Like most of the cave rooms they had gone through, this one was littered with rocks from small pebbles to large boulders. Tobiah wanted every one of them stacked in front of the exit.

“Someone will make their way here eventually,” he said. “And I don’t want to have to rely on bats and ghosts to keep them away.”

By virtue of her aching ankle, Agnes sat down and rested while Tobiah, Throp and the princess worked to block the hole, staring with a large boulder that took all three of them pushing to make budge. Then they filled in the gaps with smaller and smaller rocks until the exit was barely even detectable. It was hard, sweat-inducing work and when they were finished Tobiah stepped back and admired it.

“They’d need a battering ram to get through that from the other side,” he said. “And even then they’d likely slip in the bat waste and fall on their rear ends.” He laughed to himself at the thought. They took a little rest, drinking the last of the water from the canteens. Tobiah told them not to worry, though. They were nearly where they needed to be.

As they made their way to the next room Throp noticed small trickles of water seeping from between some cracks in the cave wall. It gathered into a small stream, which grew into a small stream that was soon large enough that they couldn’t help but splash through it as they walked. Tobiah had offered again to carry Agnes who would clearly be used to being fawned over by the time she became the princess of Berabeth.

At least, thought Throp, the water might was some of the muck off of his boots. The princess had the same idea, swishing her feet in the stream and then scraping the bottoms against a rock. Suddenly she paused and furrowed her brow.

“Do you hear that?” she asked no one in particular.

“Hear what?”

“Shh,” she said. She cocked her head to the side. Throp did the same, trying to hear what she was hearing. And then he did.

He thought it was a whistle at first, but then realized that wasn’t it. It was too low to be a whistle, and what’s more, there wasn’t just one. Several sounds merged together, raising and lowering in pitch but with no obvious pattern. Then Throp realized what it was and chills when down his spine.

“It’s moaning,” he said out loud. He looked to the princess, whose face was ashen. She turned on Tobiah.

“This is the Cave of Souls,” she said, an almost accusatory tone in her voice. Tobiah looked surprised.

“You know of the Cave of Souls?” She nodded.

“What is the Cave of Souls?” Throp asked.

“It’s where the souls of pirates go when they die,” she said.

“What does that mean?” Agnes asked, her voice rising in fear.

The princess answered.

“It means this cave is haunted.”