ship’s side he had shot across a dark space in a panic, and then, striking something—whether human or not he had no notion—he had shot across another dark space in another panic. He had stopped dead on the edge of a dip. He had heard a movement near him. Human, this time, he swore. He had shot down the dip, fallen, clutched, and discovered a rail. Thus he had arrived at the first of the interminable ladders.
Now he was in a maze of ladders. A metallic city of descents. But he did not always descend. Sometimes he went up. The main thing was to keep moving, and to move in the least impossible direction. Presently one would come to a dead end, and then one would stop because one had to.
It is probable that if Ben had never been in a ship’s stomach before he would have been killed or caught during the early stages of his journey. A ship’s interior is not designed for the speed of those who dwell in it. In his zenith, however, Ben had stoked with the best of them, and a long-dormant instinct was now reasserting itself and leading him towards coal.
But it was the simple law of gravitation that finally brought him there. He was descending a particularly precipitous ladder, a ladder that seemed to be hanging down sheerly into space, and all at once something caught his eye between the rungs. He became conscious of a sudden flutter. A small shape, like a detached hand, loomed momentarily, and it gave him a shock that loosened his grip. ‘Oi!’ he gulped. The rung he had been grasping shot upwards, while he shot downwards. A short, swift flight through space, and he landed on the coal
He was oblivious to the impact. As his long-suffering frame rebelled at last against the indignity of consciousness, he swam into a velvet blackness, and this time the blackness was utterly obliterating.
Thud-thud! Thud-thud! Thud-thud!
Ben opened his eyes. He came out of the greater blackness into the lesser. Cosmos was replaced by coal.
Coal was all about him. Under him, beside him, on top of him. He could understand the coal that was under him and the coal that was beside him, but he couldn’t understand the coal that was on top of him. When you fall upon coal, it doesn’t usually get up and lay itself over you like a counterpane.
But that wasn’t the only thing that puzzled him. There was something else. Something new. Something …
Thud-thud! Thud-thud! Thud-thud!
‘Gawd—we’re movin’!’ thought Ben.
Yes, undoubtedly, the boat was moving. The engines were thudding rhythmically, like great pulses, and although there was nothing visible by which to gauge movement, Ben’s body felt a sense of progress. How long had he been unconscious, then? More than the minute it seemed, obviously. Was it ten minutes, or an hour, or twelve hours, since he had seen the little waving hand and had pitched down here from the ladder? Or … even longer?
He moved cautiously. Very cautiously. This surprising roof of coal must be treated with respect, or it would cave in. As he moved, his foot came into contact with something that, surely, was not coal. Something soft. Something warm. Then he remembered the last warm, soft thing he had touched, and he stiffened.
The fellow he had tripped over in the dockyard! Was he here, beside him?
No, of course not! Steady, Ben! There was that splash, don’t you remember? That fellow had been pitched into the water. And, anyhow, this soft thing was different, somehow. Quite different. Ah, a cat! That was it! The ship’s cat, come to see him, and to give him a friendly lick!
Now Ben moved his hand, groping carefully through the cavern towards the cat’s body. ‘Puss, puss!’ he muttered. ‘’Ow’s yer mother?’ He opened his fingers, and prepared to stroke whatever they made contact with. His fingers met other fingers. The other fingers closed over his.
‘That’s funny!’ thought Ben. ‘Why ain’t I shriekin’?’
It wasn’t because he wasn’t trying. He was doing all he could to shriek. Well, wouldn’t you, if you were lying in a cavern of coal, and somebody else’s hand closed over yours? But the shriek would not come. It was merely his thought that bawled. P’r’aps he had a bit of coal in his throat? That might be it! How did you get a bit of coal out of your throat when one hand was under you, and the other was being held, and your nose was pressing against another bit of coal?
Then Ben realised why he wasn’t screaming. The other person’s hand, in some queer way, was ordering him not to. It kept on pressing his, at first in long, determined grasps, but afterwards in quick, spasmodic ones. ‘Don’t scream—don’t scream—don’t scream!’ urged each pressure. ‘Wait!’
What for?
A moment later, he knew. Voices were approaching.
At first they were merely an indistinguishable accompaniment to the thudding of the engines, but gradually they drew out of throb and became separate and individual. One voice was slow and rough. The other was sharp and curt. Ben had never heard either of them before, yet he had an odd sensation that he had done so, and instinctively he visualised the speakers. The first, tall; the second, short, thick-set and stumpy.
‘This the spot?’ drawled the first speaker.
‘Yes. Charming, isn’t it?’ said the second.
There was a pause. When the first speaker answered he had drawn nearer, and seemed so close that Ben nearly jumped. He might have jumped but for another little pressure of the fingers still closed over his.
‘Can’t say I’d choose to live in it,’ came the slow voice.
‘Well, no one’s asking you to live in it,’ came the curt one. ‘It’ll do, anyway. That is, if we’re driven to it. But there may be another way.’
‘Seems to’ve been made for us.’
‘P’r’aps it was! Old Papa Fate hands one a prize once and again, doesn’t he? He handed you to me, for instance!’
‘And he handed you to me!’
A short laugh followed. Then the curt voice said:
‘Well, it’s fifty-fifty. Only, don’t forget, son of a gun, you don’t get your fifty unless I get mine!’
‘I’m not forgetting anything,’ retorted the slow voice; ‘and if there’s any damned double-crossing, I sha’n’t forget that, either! What’s beyond there?’
‘Water.’
‘Don’t be funny. Is all this coal?’
‘Ay.’
‘Just coal?’
‘Of course, just coal! D’you suppose we feed the fires with diamonds? Have a feel!’
Ben bared his teeth to bite. God spared him the necessity.
‘What’s all this curiosity, anyhow?’ demanded the curt voice abruptly.
‘Nothing special,’ responded the slow voice. ‘But there’s no harm in knowing, is there?’
‘None at all. And you can trust me with the knowing! I expect I know my own ship, and—hallo! What’s that?’
The
