"Shock! Shock!" I cried, but there was no reply, and it sounded as if
my voice was squeezed up in a narrowed space; then I seemed to hear a
rustling noise as I stepped forward, I was kicked violently in the shins
and fell forward with my hands plunging into a mass of soft sand, and to
my horror I found that I was lying upon my companion, who was half
buried.
The perspiration stood out all over me as I leaped to my feet; and then
went down again to find that Shock was kicking frantically, and a
moment's investigation told me that he could not extricate himself.
Seizing one of his legs, which as I grasped by the ankle and clasped it
to my side, kept giving spasmodic jerks, I dragged with all my might,
and found I could not move him; but as I dragged again he seemed to give
a tremendous throb, and I went backwards, followed, it seemed to me in
the darkness, by a quantity of soft sand; but Shock was free, for I
could feel him by me lying on his face, and as I turned him over he
uttered a groan.
And now a horrible sensation of fear came over me as I thoroughly
realised that I was buried alive in that sand-cave. I felt that my
climbing about on the top of the cliff had loosened or cracked the
compressed sand. Shock and I had jumped about over it when we threw
down the wood we had gathered, and that seemed to be the explanation of
the mishap.
But I had no time to think of this now, for the thought that perhaps
Shock was killed, suffocated, came over me with terrible force, and I
bent over him, feeling his face, his heart, and hands.
His heart was beating fast, and his hands were warm, but though I spoke
to him over and over again, in the darkness, there was no answer, and
with a cry of despair I threw myself on my knees, when all at once he
shouted: "Hullo!"
"Shock," I cried, "I'm here."
"What yer do that for?" he cried fiercely.
"I didn't do anything."
"Yes, yer did," he cried. "Yer threw a lump o' sand on my head. I'm
half blind, and my ears is full. Just wait till I gets hold on yer,
I'll pay yer for it."
Then he began panting, and spitting, and muttering about his eyes, and
at last--"Here, where are yer?"
"I'm here, close by you," I said. "Don't you understand? The sand has
fallen and shut us in."
There was silence for a few minutes--a terrible painful silence to me,
as I felt that I was face to face with death. Then Shock seemed to have
grasped the situation, for he said coolly enough: "Like the rabbuds. Well, we shall have to get out."