DEAD IRAN’S CHAIR

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1745, 16 August 1905, Page 3

DEAD IRAN’S CHAIR

(By Owen Oliver.)

The facts concerning my brother Jim’s disappearance were few and simple. Cook heard! the front door slam about six one June morning. Burton, the milkman, saw him sauntering down the lane with a towel over his shoulder at a quarter-past. At a quarter to seven Captain Fairchild, going for liis morning dip, found his clothes by Dead Man s Pool. The only mystery was that his body was never recovered. There was, in truth, nothing very mysterious in this. A body might easily be washed out of the pool right away to sea. But my mother was continually dreaming that poor Jim stood beside the pool and pointed to its depths; so she decided that some dreadful secret lay there.

No one in, the neighbourhood proved equal to reaching the bottom, so when I came home from India a year later I determined to make the attempt. I was, I may say without vanity, a far stronger swimmer and diver than any of our friends. For two mornings I dived until exhausted without any result; indeed, without ever reaching the bottom, which, was over thirty feet below the surface, even at low tide. Upon the third morning I resolved to plunge from a greater height. Dead Man’s Pool is a basin of about a hundred feet in diameter, opening into the rocky cliffs. Its right hand boundary is a tall hill, some eight hundred feet high, called Dead Man’s Chair. Some daring climbers of my greatgrandfather’s days were said to have reached the summit; but in my time no one had ever made the attempt. Upon the land side of the pool there were a number of natural platforms, to which steps had been made, so that swimmers could bathe from one or the other, according to the state' of the; tide.

A few of the bolder spirits occasionally dived from ledges along the side of the hill; but only my brother ana I had ever dared to plunge at low tide from the highest accessible ledge—a distance of some fifty feet. From this eminence, however, I hoped to gain sufficient impetus to carry me to the bottom, so I resolved to take the risk.

As I clambered up to the ledge I had an eerie sort of feeling that my brother’s feet had teen the last to tread there, when he went to his death; but I smiled at my fears, and made a bold spring from the edge. I dashed into the deep green water, which seemed to sway away behind me, and struck out furiously downwards. As I was expecting, every moment to touch the bottom with my hands,. a terrific current seized me, twisted mo violently round, and carried me along quicker than I could rise to the surface. Just when I was nearing the top of the water the dim light suddenly faded out; and then the horrible truth flashed upon me, I was being carried away, aa my brother had been, by a current running under Dead Man’s Chair! , I made desperate efforts to turn back, but in vain. My breath began, to fail, and drums seemed beating in my ears. I strove to an imaginary surface, and merely knocked against the rocky top of the channel, till I reached an opening somewhere in the dark. Then I tried to breathe, but there waa no air, and I sank hopelessly into the seething waters, swallowing mouthfuls with a dumb sob. Then I was dashed against something hard, and then—nothingness! The first notice of returning life waa a voice somewhere in the stillness. Then the world seemed to break in upon me with a dazzling rush. I was lying upon a heap of soft, dry seaweed, and a wildlooking man with long hair and a huge, straggling beard was bending over me. I did not recognise his features in the dull light, but when he spoke I knew him. It was my brother !

“Where am I, Jim?’ I asked 1 slowly. “Am I dead or alive?”

“Alive, my poor boy,” he answered, laying his hand upon my shoulder. “Buried alive—in Dead Man’s Chair!” I sat up and looked round me, and slowly realised our awful fate. The inside of the great hill was hollow, and the current had carried us both there!

The prison bo which we were consigned was an irregular oblong, some sixty yardls by fifty; a deep pool, with a border of slimy boulders and patches of shingle. The sides were precipitous rocks, slightly overhanging, and keeping us in semi-twilight, even at noon, except in the summer, when we caught a glimpse of the sun through a long cleft upon the south side.

Upon the north side the cliff was climbable to a height of some thirty yards, at which point a sort of platform ran round the in closure and a quantity of tall rank grass grew, which we used for our beds. Here, too, there was a deep cave, which was our dwelling-place, and in the mouth of which we kept a small fire alight, all the year round. My brother had found a pair of binoculars among the wreckage round the pool, and had succeeded in kindling a fire by using one lens which was undamaged as a burning glass; so we had the comfort of being able to cook our food in an indifferent fashion.

The food was mussels and 1 other email eggs from the n~? s quests about the rooks, and o^fl^ naUy Sbird knocked down with, a stoneOur drink was ram water, which col looted in the hollows of the rocks. Our clothing was made of dried seaweed, tied together with our bathing drawers tom “dvßtor shells rubbed to an edge were our knives, and egg shells were our cup®. PiLes of wreckage were our seats; a SSfdeal of such had accumulated duryears, though none came in m W l e* also 0 "made winter cloaks out.of birds’ wings tied together with half rotten yam which we found among the sear drift In this short list I have, I think, mentioned every small comfort which alleviated the hardships of our lot. As soon as I had overcome the first horror of the . situation my _ thoughts turned to projects of escape: but my brother pronounced one and all impraonot swim out with the current when it turns P” I suggested. . „ “It never turns. It always flows in. “It must flow out somewhere. - “Yes. It escapes through a nximber of small fissures upon the other side. Do you see these marks ?” Heshowed me Humber of deep scare. “They are the result of trying to find a way through “Could*we not make a tunnel through the rock itself P” .. , . “Through twenty yards of solid rook! Even if we found the place where xx, is narrowest. ■ ~ n» “Is there no way of scaling the cun r He laughed bitterly. “Look i” he said, pointing with his finger to the towering cliff®. I shook my head. ~ - „ “We can’t throw a stone over them, I said thoughtfully. “But if we could make a stout how and arrow we might fire messages through the opening out to aea. One might be picked up, and <. ‘What are we to make the bow of ? „ “There are some pieces of stout cane, I said. “Let us try.” So we tried; but all the yam which we used for the bow-string proved rotten. and broke when we tried l to fire hard; so we abandoned this plan also. “If we kept on shouting ■” I suggested. _ ' “I have shouted until I have lost my voice for days,” he said quietly. “No one heard.” “If we made up a bigger fire they might see the smoke.” “It would disperse before it came near the top,” he pointed out. Other and wilder schemes proved of Ho more avail. So for a time I abandoned myself to despair. My brother also> relapsed into gloom—he had 1 aged greatly during hist captivity, I noticed —and for days together we scarcely spoke a word. The summer passed into autumn, and we began to dread the approach of winter. “I must find) something to do.” I said desperately, “or I shall go mad. Can’t you suggest anything, old man?” He. roused himself with an effort. “Poor old Frank!” he said pityingly. “I’ll try; upon my word, I’ll try.”

The next morning he announced that he had an idea; that we might catch some fish where the current ran out through the -fissures. After several failures we made a sort of net out of some pieces of wicker and yarn, and by hanging this over the openings we caught a number of small flatfish. The improvement in diet had a marked effect upon our bodily and mental vigour, and I began to plan modes of escape at once. “We might cut steps up the rock by using some of the large nails and bars out of the wreckage,” I proposed. “If we could l only show ourselves at the top, they would soon find some means of getting us off. They would fire up a line with rocket®, or ” ‘We couldn’t cut the steps in fifty years,” he objected. . “At any rate,” I insisted, “it will be something to dio. Let us try.” So we set to work. In about a fortnight we extracted from the wreckage a number of large nails and three large bolts, which we used as hammers. Then, starting from our platform, we commenced to make our steps —at the rate of about one a fortnight. We deliberated 'Over every eighth of an inch on account of the cost of labour and tools. We were in the middle of the sixth stop—which would raise us about four yards—when the full severity of winter began. During the next two months we only reached the eighth step, and our tools began to fail. Of all the sad days of that sad winter I remember Christmas Day the best; how I gave my brother a pair of tootcovers made of feathers, and he gave me four large nails, as _ Christmas presents ; how we eat and shivered and looked out of the mouth of our cave at the fast falling snow; how we talked or what they would be doing at home; how he told me that he had hoped to win pretty Annette Grey; how I owned to my love for Lucy Bryant; how I cannot bear to write any more about it! When the spring at last reached down into our depths we had cut fourteen steps.... By June our tools had utterly given out before we finished numbei €1 Wef had! let our fire out, and when the sun returned did not even trouble to light it. . The supply of food had 1 grown scarcer, and we hardly touched what little we could find. We did nothing hut sit—two gaunt and woebegone figures in ridiculous attire —looking away from one another into the depths of the pool. After about a week’s gazing I had a sudden thought. . . „ “The pool has grown quiet, brother, iHe nodded. He hated to hear himself speak in those days. I put my hand suddenly upon his arm. . y “If the current no longer runs ml I said excitedly. “They were building a. breakwater at Storm Point. If that has stopped the set of the tide!” He laughed an hysterical laugh. ‘You could swim out!” he cried.

“I could swim out!” We gathered little bite of stick aud threw them into, the pool. Not an eddy remained. ... The next day he lit the fire again with the lens, and we sought food with new vigour. I was to recruit my strength for a week, and then try to swim out, it wlas agreed, being the swifter and the better swimmer. If I succeeded his rescue would be merely a matter of time.. I grew stronger every day. The water sank lower than before, we noticed, at low tide, and I could swim several yards into the hollow before going under water. I practised diving in the pool, and found that my old skill was little impaired. When the time came for the attempt we grasped one another’s hands and looked into one another’s eyes. “If I do not hear from you soon ” he said meaningly. “You will hear,” I vowed. “We will fire a cannon or send rockets over the top to-night. Good-bye, old man.” <• “Good-bye.” he' said. “God help you !” Then I took to the water. When I reached the place where I must go under the rock I drew a deepi breath. Then I swam as I had never before. I was almost exhausted when I reached the place where the roof was above the water, but I passed swiftly through it. The drumming in my ears began, and I feared that. I had over-estimated my strength, and that, without the current to guide me, I might fail to find the pasMy heart seemed stopping, and my limbs almost refused to move. I resisted the temptation to try to breathe the vacuum, and plunged under again. There in front of me! There was a glimmer of light through the water! I struck out wildly, and felt myself going on slowly, like one in a suffocating night--1 mare, with the water roaring louder and louder in my ears. My strokes grew feebler and feebler, and I was constantly carried upward and bruised against the roof of the cavity ; but still I struggled on. The veins in my body seemed bursting; but the pale light grew nearer and nearer. The breath began to escape from my mouth, and the water to bubble in. God have mercy! I scraped up the side of the rock, and floated, bleeding and barely conscious to the top of the water. Some men in a boat picked me up after a few minutes. A diver was telegraphed for, and went through that

afternoon with a spare dress, in which he brought out my brother. Annette, to whom I had given his message, waited for him at the water’s edge. Among all the excitement one thing stands out ini my memory. They told me that Lucy had come to see me, and I ran out of the fitting-room to cut off my long beard and hair, for fear of looking repulsive in her eyes; but she met me in the passage, and threw herself sobbing into my arms; and for the next five minutes I felt myself repaid, even for the horrors of Dead Man’s Chair.