Page:Frank Stockton--Adventures of Captain Horn.djvu/209

ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN HORN futility of attempting to move the bags in the darkness. He had a lantern, but that would be of little service on such a night and for such a work.

He went back into his tent, and tried to prevail upon himself that he ought to go to sleep—that it was ridiculous to beset himself with imaginary dangers, and to suffer from them as much as if they had been real ones. But such reasoning was vain, and he sat up or walked about near his tent all night, listening and listening, and trying to think of the best thing to do if he should hear a coming flood. As soon as it was light, he hurried to the caves, and when he reached the old bed of the lake, he found there was not a drop of water in it. "The thing doesn't work!" he cried joyfully. "Fool that I am, I might have known that although a man might open a valve two or three centuries old, he should not expect to shut it up again. I suppose I smashed it utterly." His revulsion of feeling was so great that he began to laugh at his own absurdity, and then he laughed at his merriment.

"If any one should see me now," he thought, "they would surely think I had gone crazy over my wealth. Well, there is no danger from a flood, but, to make all things more than safe, I will pull down this handle, if it will come. Anyway, I do not want it seen." The great bar came down much easier than it had gone up, moving, in fact, the captain thought, as if some of its detachments were broken, and when it was down as far as it would go, he came away.

"Now," said he, "I have done with this cave for this trip. If possible, I shall think of it no more." 195