Chapter Nine: The Return of Ralph the Timid.

In the cave, it was black. Very black indeed. Apart from Ralph's candle, flickering a little from some hidden draft, and the shaft of light trickling through the cave opening, there was nothing to be seen except the darkness. Ralph the Timid was undaunted by this, even when Mad Pete leaned down into the hole, blocking out all sunlight from that source.

"How's it going down there, laddie?" He called, squinting to try and make out Ralph's face in the unsteady candlelight.

"It's quite all right!" called back Ralph. "It's not as damp in here as I would have expected from the limestone, so it's not at all slippery. Now what was it you wanted me to look for?" Mad Pete's previous you'll-know-it-if-you-see-it answer did not satisfy him. Ralph the Timid was not afraid of many things, but he did not want to be collecting anything in the dark that would suddenly attack him or explode.

"It's a parcel, young man! You'll know it when you see it!" Mad Pete replied, irritatingly. "Don't worry, it won't bite!"

So Ralph the Timid sighed heavily, squared his shoulders and strode off into the darkness. At least, he walked carefully off into the darkness. The floor wasn't slippery but it was uneven, and you never knew with caves when the floor might suddenly fall away and you would find yourself in a very deep hole indeed, or worse, a subterraean river, or worse again, thin air. So Ralph went carefully, making sure his footing was secure and occasionally holding on to the walls with his free hand.

The cave, as he had told Pete, was not as damp as most limestone caves he had encountered before, and the air was quite fresh, which led Ralph to suppose there were other entrances to the cave nearby. He was only guessing though, as he could not actually see them. His candle flame was flickering though, so there was certainly a breeze.

The cave itself was quite wide, but would narrow suddenly and Ralph would find himself squeezing through tight gaps in the rock, turned sideways to fit and still feeling the cold rock hard against his stomach and his back, only to come out a few yards later in another wide chamber. There had only been one direction to go on entering the cave and that had been the direction he had taken, having first scoured the chamber for ledges and hollows in which a parcel could have been secreted. The route Ralph took led slightly downhill, and as he squeezed into the fourth large chamber Ralph was sure he noticed the air become decidedly chillier.

He raised the candle above his head and slowly walked around the walls, looking for hiding places. The wax was dripping very low by this stage and occasionally he splattered his hand with hot molten wax. It had not taken him long to regret agreeing to this adventure. If he'd had a lantern it would have been a different story, but squeezing through dark narrow cavities in rock walls while keeping hold of a lit candle was not easy.

Ralph had nearly made a full circuit of the room when he spotted something behind a stony outcrop. It was small - not much bigger than one of his younger sisters dolls - squarish, and wrapped untidily in what appeared to be brown paper tied with string. He reached out to pick it up and as he did so, his candle went out.

It had been dark in the cave before, but now it was really dark. Really incredibly heavily omnipotently dark. Ralph said something exclamatory under his breath that his foster mother would have told him off for and, abandoning his reach for the parcel, began fumbling around for some matches to relight the candle.

As he patted his pockets he suddenly became aware of something other than the darkness.
There was someone else in the cave with him.

[Word Count: 9021]