Chapter Twenty Five.The midshipman drew in a long breath of the salt air, as he stood at the opening in the cliff face. He tightened his belt, drew his red cap down on his head, wished that his hands were not so sore, and muttered the words, “Now for liberty!” He began to creep through the hole till his head was well out, and he could look round for enemies.There was not one. The only thing that he could see was a gull sailing round and round between him and the sea, down to his right.And now, for the first time, it struck him that the gull looked very small, and from that by degrees he began to realise that the hole out of which he had thrust his head was fully four hundred feet above where the waves broke, and that it must be two hundred more to the top of the cliff.It looked more perilous too than it had seemed before, but the lad was in nowise daunted. The way was open to him to climb up or lower himself down apparently, but he chose the former way of escape, knowing as he did how very little at the base of the cliffs was left bare even in the lowest tides, and that if he got down he would either have to swim or to sit perched upon a shelf of rock till some boat came and picked him off.There was no cutter in view, but he did not trouble about that. He stopped only to gaze down at the dazzling blue sea, and thought that if it came to the worst he could leap right off into deep water, and then he drew himself right out on to a rugged ledge, a few inches in width, and stood holding on by the stones round the opening, looking upward for the best way to get up.“Don’t seem easy,” he said cheerily, “but every foot climbed will be one less to get up. So, here goes.”As he ceased speaking he drew a deep breath, and then feeling that safety depended upon his being firm, cool, and deliberate, he made his way from the mouth of the hole along the ledge upon which he stood, till he found a spot where he could ascend higher.It was necessary that he should find such a spot, for the ledge had grown narrower and in another yard died completely away. So, raising his hands to their full extent, he found a place for one foot, then for the other, repeated the experiment, and was just going to draw himself up to a ledge similar to that which he had just left, when one foot slipped from the stone upon which it rested, and had the lad lost his nerve he must have fallen headlong.But he held on tightly, waited a minute to let the jarring sensation pass away, depending upon his hands and one foot. Then calmly searching about he found firm foothold, raised himself, and the next moment he was on the green ledge.“Wouldn’t have done to tumble,” he said with a hall laugh. “Fall’s one thing, a dive another. I suppose the water’s pretty deep down there.”The ledge he was now on was fully a foot wide, and the refuse and fish bones with which it was strewn told plainly enough that in the spring time it was the resting—perhaps nesting—place of the sea-birds which swarmed along the coast.As he stood facing the rock he found directly that he could not get any farther to his right, and a little search proved that from this ledge he could get no higher, not even had he been provided with a ladder. Even if a rope had been lowered down to him from the top of the cliff, it would have been of no avail, for he realised now that which he could not see from the hole by which he had escaped, to wit, that the cliff projected above the opening, and a lowered down rope would have hung several feet right away clear.“Get farther along,” he said coolly; and he edged himself slowly along, taking hold of every prominence he found to steady himself, and passing cautiously along the rough ledge over the hole, and then onward for forty or fifty feet, where a rift ran upward, and, by cautious climbing, he mounted slowly till he was on a fresh ledge, a few feet above which was another rift, and he climbed again, to come to a depression or niche, where he stopped to rest.“No occasion to hurry,” he said to himself, and as there was plenty of room he sat down and gazed out to sea, noting a sail far away to the right, but the vessel was a schooner—it was not that which he sought.He was apparently cool enough, but his pulses beat more rapidly than was consistent with the exertion through which he had gone, and being after a few minutes eager now to get his task at an end, he tried to the left, to find no way up there, to the right, but everywhere the rock was perpendicular, and offered no foothold; or else sloped outward, and concealed what was above.He tried again and again, hoping against hope, but without result.“Must be a way up,” he said, evidently considering that there must be because he wanted it, and he took tightly hold of a rough corner and leaned out a little to gaze upward, to find, in whichever direction he looked, right or left, there was nothing but rugged limestone, which had been splintered and moulded by time till there was not a spot where the most venturesome climber could obtain foothold; in fact, above him he could not see a spot where even the sea-birds had been in the habit of finding a resting-place.It was for liberty, and naturally enough the midshipman made no superficial search. His next plan was to lie flat down in the niche he had made his temporary resting-place, lean over, and try and map out a course by which he could descend a little way and then pass along for a distance, and resume his climb upward with better chances of success.But no; he could see no sign to help him, and, as a keen sense of disappointment assailed him that he should have got so near liberty and have to give up, he decided that the way to freedom was downward.And now, as he looked over the edge of the shelf on which he lay, it struck him for the first time that it was a very terrible descent, and, turning his eyes away, he looked up again for a way there.All in vain. He was fully a hundred and twenty feet from the top of the huge cliff, and, half afraid now that he should be quite afraid, he determined to lose no time, and, going to the spot where he had crept on to the niche floor, he began to lower himself slowly down.“Be a good thing,” he said to himself, as he searched with his feet and made sure of his footing, “if one could leave all one’s thoughts behind at a time like this, or only keep enough to think where to put one’s feet.”“Glad I haven’t got on my uniform,” he said a few moments later, as his breast scraped over the rough rock.Soon after,—“Oh, how sore my hands are! That’s better.”He was back in safety on the ledge over the hole, and, passing along, he had soon descended to the one beneath the exit.“Now then,” he said, as he paused for a few minutes before commencing his descent; “this will be easier.”Somehow he did not feel in any hurry to begin, and he sat down with his legs hanging over the ledge, to give his nerves time to calm down, for there was a strong tendency to throb about his pulses, and he was not sufficiently conversant with the house he lived in, to know that confinement, worry, want of fresh air, and excessive work during the past few days had not given him what the doctors call “tone.”So he sat there with his back to the rock, gazing out to sea again, and then watching the graceful curves made by a gull, which had risen higher and higher, and came nearer and nearer, till it was on a level with him, and watching him curiously.“Wonder whether you think I am going to fall and let you have a pick at me,” said Archy, with a forced laugh; “because I am not going to tumble, so you can be off.”All the same, though, he shuddered, and he had to exercise a little force to make his new start downward.“Best way after all,” he said, as he began to descend. “If you go up, it gets more dangerous every minute, because you have farther to fall. If you go down, it gets safer, because you have less.”He found the way now comparatively easy, for the rock sloped a little out, and he had even got down some sixty feet when he had a check.“I don’t know, though,” he said, as he put a bleeding knuckle to his lips. “Don’t make much difference, I should think, whether you fall one hundred feet or five. Bother! I wish I did not keep on thinking about tumbling.”He forced himself to study the next part of his descent, which was nearly perpendicular, but well broken up with ledges and cracks which offered good holding, and terminated a hundred feet below, upon a shelf, which naturally offered itself as his next resting-place, but beyond which it was impossible to see.“Don’t matter,” he said more cheerfully. “Let’s take difficulties a bit at a time. I’m free, and I can laugh at them now. I could jump into deep water and swim, if there were no way down from below there.”His spirits rose now, for, though a false step or slip of the foot would have sent him headlong down to the broad ledge, from which he would in all probability have bounded into the sea, the climbing was good, and, panting with the exertion, he got from projection to ledge, now straight down, now diagonally, and often along first one tiny ledge or cornice and then another, zig-zagging, till, at about twenty feet from the place he was making for, a slaty piece of the limestone rock by which he was holding parted, frost-loosened, from the parent rock, and he went down with a rush.But it was only a slide. He alighted on his feet, and, scratched and startled a bit, stood panting and trying to recover his composure.“No harm done,” he said, as he looked up to where the hole from which he had escaped was beginning to look quite small. “Might have been worse. Quite bad enough, though. Shakes one so. Now for a rest, and then down again.”He stepped to the edge and looked over in the middle, next to the left, then to the right, and always with the same result. He was now on a regular sea-birds’ sanctuary, for the rock below him was not perpendicular; but sloped right under, and, try as he would, he could devise no plan for getting down lower, save by taking a header into the sea, where the water looked black and deep to his right, while to his left there was the chasm upon which, twenty feet or so out of the perpendicular line, was the hole from which he had come.Heights of sea-cliffs are very deceptive, and slopes which look to the inexperienced eye only a hundred feet or so to the top, are often more than double. It was so here, for, in spite of the distance he had come down, the midshipman found that he must be fully two hundred feet above the sea.“Oh, how vexatious!” he cried, as he ground his teeth. “After all that work, after being so sure, to be out here on this wretched shelf like an old cormorant, but without any wings.”“I don’t care,” he said aloud, after again and again convincing himself that there was no possible means of farther descent. “I won’t go back to prison; I’ll sit here and starve first. Not I,” he added, after a few moments’ thought; “the cutter will be sure to sail by, and they could see me if I made signals from just here.”Rather doubtful, as he knew, for he was only at the corner of the chasm or tiny gulf into which the sea rushed, and the chances were that unless he had something big and white to wave, he was not likely to get his signal seen.For one moment only the recollection of the food he had left behind tempted him to return.“I might get it, and bring the basket down,” he said. “No, I won’t try it again; it’s too dangerous. I don’t want another slip. Besides, there must be a way down farther, if I could find it. Of course! I knew it!” he cried, as he gazed over once more, farther in toward the head of the little chasm, which looked as though the rock had been split from top to bottom.He rubbed his hands, for some thirty feet below there was certainly a narrow possible place, and from there perhaps another might be found.“If one could get down,” he said to himself; but it did not look possible; the rock was out even of the perpendicular, and no sane person would attempt to drop from the edge so great a distance as that.At that moment a piece of slaty rock came sliding down from on high, to fall with a crash and splinter on the rock at his feet.“Must have loosened that,” he said; “good job I didn’t get it on my head. Oh!”It was a cry of rage as much as of alarm, for there, following his track exactly, was Ram, who had returned repentant, alone, with his basket, to miss his prisoner, search, find the opening, and without hesitation to come down the cliff in pursuit.
The midshipman drew in a long breath of the salt air, as he stood at the opening in the cliff face. He tightened his belt, drew his red cap down on his head, wished that his hands were not so sore, and muttered the words, “Now for liberty!” He began to creep through the hole till his head was well out, and he could look round for enemies.
There was not one. The only thing that he could see was a gull sailing round and round between him and the sea, down to his right.
And now, for the first time, it struck him that the gull looked very small, and from that by degrees he began to realise that the hole out of which he had thrust his head was fully four hundred feet above where the waves broke, and that it must be two hundred more to the top of the cliff.
It looked more perilous too than it had seemed before, but the lad was in nowise daunted. The way was open to him to climb up or lower himself down apparently, but he chose the former way of escape, knowing as he did how very little at the base of the cliffs was left bare even in the lowest tides, and that if he got down he would either have to swim or to sit perched upon a shelf of rock till some boat came and picked him off.
There was no cutter in view, but he did not trouble about that. He stopped only to gaze down at the dazzling blue sea, and thought that if it came to the worst he could leap right off into deep water, and then he drew himself right out on to a rugged ledge, a few inches in width, and stood holding on by the stones round the opening, looking upward for the best way to get up.
“Don’t seem easy,” he said cheerily, “but every foot climbed will be one less to get up. So, here goes.”
As he ceased speaking he drew a deep breath, and then feeling that safety depended upon his being firm, cool, and deliberate, he made his way from the mouth of the hole along the ledge upon which he stood, till he found a spot where he could ascend higher.
It was necessary that he should find such a spot, for the ledge had grown narrower and in another yard died completely away. So, raising his hands to their full extent, he found a place for one foot, then for the other, repeated the experiment, and was just going to draw himself up to a ledge similar to that which he had just left, when one foot slipped from the stone upon which it rested, and had the lad lost his nerve he must have fallen headlong.
But he held on tightly, waited a minute to let the jarring sensation pass away, depending upon his hands and one foot. Then calmly searching about he found firm foothold, raised himself, and the next moment he was on the green ledge.
“Wouldn’t have done to tumble,” he said with a hall laugh. “Fall’s one thing, a dive another. I suppose the water’s pretty deep down there.”
The ledge he was now on was fully a foot wide, and the refuse and fish bones with which it was strewn told plainly enough that in the spring time it was the resting—perhaps nesting—place of the sea-birds which swarmed along the coast.
As he stood facing the rock he found directly that he could not get any farther to his right, and a little search proved that from this ledge he could get no higher, not even had he been provided with a ladder. Even if a rope had been lowered down to him from the top of the cliff, it would have been of no avail, for he realised now that which he could not see from the hole by which he had escaped, to wit, that the cliff projected above the opening, and a lowered down rope would have hung several feet right away clear.
“Get farther along,” he said coolly; and he edged himself slowly along, taking hold of every prominence he found to steady himself, and passing cautiously along the rough ledge over the hole, and then onward for forty or fifty feet, where a rift ran upward, and, by cautious climbing, he mounted slowly till he was on a fresh ledge, a few feet above which was another rift, and he climbed again, to come to a depression or niche, where he stopped to rest.
“No occasion to hurry,” he said to himself, and as there was plenty of room he sat down and gazed out to sea, noting a sail far away to the right, but the vessel was a schooner—it was not that which he sought.
He was apparently cool enough, but his pulses beat more rapidly than was consistent with the exertion through which he had gone, and being after a few minutes eager now to get his task at an end, he tried to the left, to find no way up there, to the right, but everywhere the rock was perpendicular, and offered no foothold; or else sloped outward, and concealed what was above.
He tried again and again, hoping against hope, but without result.
“Must be a way up,” he said, evidently considering that there must be because he wanted it, and he took tightly hold of a rough corner and leaned out a little to gaze upward, to find, in whichever direction he looked, right or left, there was nothing but rugged limestone, which had been splintered and moulded by time till there was not a spot where the most venturesome climber could obtain foothold; in fact, above him he could not see a spot where even the sea-birds had been in the habit of finding a resting-place.
It was for liberty, and naturally enough the midshipman made no superficial search. His next plan was to lie flat down in the niche he had made his temporary resting-place, lean over, and try and map out a course by which he could descend a little way and then pass along for a distance, and resume his climb upward with better chances of success.
But no; he could see no sign to help him, and, as a keen sense of disappointment assailed him that he should have got so near liberty and have to give up, he decided that the way to freedom was downward.
And now, as he looked over the edge of the shelf on which he lay, it struck him for the first time that it was a very terrible descent, and, turning his eyes away, he looked up again for a way there.
All in vain. He was fully a hundred and twenty feet from the top of the huge cliff, and, half afraid now that he should be quite afraid, he determined to lose no time, and, going to the spot where he had crept on to the niche floor, he began to lower himself slowly down.
“Be a good thing,” he said to himself, as he searched with his feet and made sure of his footing, “if one could leave all one’s thoughts behind at a time like this, or only keep enough to think where to put one’s feet.”
“Glad I haven’t got on my uniform,” he said a few moments later, as his breast scraped over the rough rock.
Soon after,—
“Oh, how sore my hands are! That’s better.”
He was back in safety on the ledge over the hole, and, passing along, he had soon descended to the one beneath the exit.
“Now then,” he said, as he paused for a few minutes before commencing his descent; “this will be easier.”
Somehow he did not feel in any hurry to begin, and he sat down with his legs hanging over the ledge, to give his nerves time to calm down, for there was a strong tendency to throb about his pulses, and he was not sufficiently conversant with the house he lived in, to know that confinement, worry, want of fresh air, and excessive work during the past few days had not given him what the doctors call “tone.”
So he sat there with his back to the rock, gazing out to sea again, and then watching the graceful curves made by a gull, which had risen higher and higher, and came nearer and nearer, till it was on a level with him, and watching him curiously.
“Wonder whether you think I am going to fall and let you have a pick at me,” said Archy, with a forced laugh; “because I am not going to tumble, so you can be off.”
All the same, though, he shuddered, and he had to exercise a little force to make his new start downward.
“Best way after all,” he said, as he began to descend. “If you go up, it gets more dangerous every minute, because you have farther to fall. If you go down, it gets safer, because you have less.”
He found the way now comparatively easy, for the rock sloped a little out, and he had even got down some sixty feet when he had a check.
“I don’t know, though,” he said, as he put a bleeding knuckle to his lips. “Don’t make much difference, I should think, whether you fall one hundred feet or five. Bother! I wish I did not keep on thinking about tumbling.”
He forced himself to study the next part of his descent, which was nearly perpendicular, but well broken up with ledges and cracks which offered good holding, and terminated a hundred feet below, upon a shelf, which naturally offered itself as his next resting-place, but beyond which it was impossible to see.
“Don’t matter,” he said more cheerfully. “Let’s take difficulties a bit at a time. I’m free, and I can laugh at them now. I could jump into deep water and swim, if there were no way down from below there.”
His spirits rose now, for, though a false step or slip of the foot would have sent him headlong down to the broad ledge, from which he would in all probability have bounded into the sea, the climbing was good, and, panting with the exertion, he got from projection to ledge, now straight down, now diagonally, and often along first one tiny ledge or cornice and then another, zig-zagging, till, at about twenty feet from the place he was making for, a slaty piece of the limestone rock by which he was holding parted, frost-loosened, from the parent rock, and he went down with a rush.
But it was only a slide. He alighted on his feet, and, scratched and startled a bit, stood panting and trying to recover his composure.
“No harm done,” he said, as he looked up to where the hole from which he had escaped was beginning to look quite small. “Might have been worse. Quite bad enough, though. Shakes one so. Now for a rest, and then down again.”
He stepped to the edge and looked over in the middle, next to the left, then to the right, and always with the same result. He was now on a regular sea-birds’ sanctuary, for the rock below him was not perpendicular; but sloped right under, and, try as he would, he could devise no plan for getting down lower, save by taking a header into the sea, where the water looked black and deep to his right, while to his left there was the chasm upon which, twenty feet or so out of the perpendicular line, was the hole from which he had come.
Heights of sea-cliffs are very deceptive, and slopes which look to the inexperienced eye only a hundred feet or so to the top, are often more than double. It was so here, for, in spite of the distance he had come down, the midshipman found that he must be fully two hundred feet above the sea.
“Oh, how vexatious!” he cried, as he ground his teeth. “After all that work, after being so sure, to be out here on this wretched shelf like an old cormorant, but without any wings.”
“I don’t care,” he said aloud, after again and again convincing himself that there was no possible means of farther descent. “I won’t go back to prison; I’ll sit here and starve first. Not I,” he added, after a few moments’ thought; “the cutter will be sure to sail by, and they could see me if I made signals from just here.”
Rather doubtful, as he knew, for he was only at the corner of the chasm or tiny gulf into which the sea rushed, and the chances were that unless he had something big and white to wave, he was not likely to get his signal seen.
For one moment only the recollection of the food he had left behind tempted him to return.
“I might get it, and bring the basket down,” he said. “No, I won’t try it again; it’s too dangerous. I don’t want another slip. Besides, there must be a way down farther, if I could find it. Of course! I knew it!” he cried, as he gazed over once more, farther in toward the head of the little chasm, which looked as though the rock had been split from top to bottom.
He rubbed his hands, for some thirty feet below there was certainly a narrow possible place, and from there perhaps another might be found.
“If one could get down,” he said to himself; but it did not look possible; the rock was out even of the perpendicular, and no sane person would attempt to drop from the edge so great a distance as that.
At that moment a piece of slaty rock came sliding down from on high, to fall with a crash and splinter on the rock at his feet.
“Must have loosened that,” he said; “good job I didn’t get it on my head. Oh!”
It was a cry of rage as much as of alarm, for there, following his track exactly, was Ram, who had returned repentant, alone, with his basket, to miss his prisoner, search, find the opening, and without hesitation to come down the cliff in pursuit.
Chapter Twenty Six.For the moment Archy Raystoke was puzzled—completely taken aback. This was something upon which he had not counted; and he stood there looking up, as he saw the boy descending with a far greater show of activity than he could have displayed.Naturally, the first thought was of further flight, but he had already convinced himself that he was again a prisoner, and as, after another glance down at the ledge below to his left, he looked up at Ram, he set his teeth, and laughed in a way that did not promise well for his pursuer.“What is he coming down for?” he said to himself, as his teeth began to set fast and his hands involuntarily to clench. “Does he think he is going to drag me up there again? He had better not try.”Meanwhile Ram was descending rapidly, and sending little ambassadors down before him in the shape of pieces of rock and shale, all of which arrived at the ledge in a very inimical way, bounding off, scattering in fragments, or falling with a heavy thud.From time to time Ram looked down at his escaped prisoner, and then devoted himself to the places where he should never plant his feet, achieving the whole in the most fearless manner, and finishing with a leap which landed him near where Archy stood gazing at him, regularly at bay.Ram did not hesitate an instant, but dashed at the midshipman to seize him by the jacket, but Archy was on his mettle, and he struck out sharply, a blow in the chest and another in the right shoulder, sending the young smuggler staggering back.“Oh, that’s it, is it?” cried Ram furiously. “I give you one more chance, though—will you give in, and come back quietly?”“If you attempt to come near me, you dog,” said Archy slowly through his clenched teeth, “I’ll knock you off here into the sea.”“Will you?” cried Ram, dashing at his late prisoner again, dodging the blow struck at him, closing with his adversary; and then began a struggle which would have made the blood of an onlooker curdle, so terribly narrow and dangerous was the place where the encounter took place.Of the pair, Archy Raystoke was a little the bigger, but the smuggler’s son fully made up for any deficiency by his activity, and the hardening his muscles had undergone for years.No blows were struck, the efforts of Ram being apparently directed to throwing the midshipman down, when he meant to sit upon him till he had reduced him to obedience.Archy’s tactics were, of course, to prevent this, and rid himself of his adversary, as he felt all the time how horribly risky it was to struggle and wrestle there, for the ledge was six feet wide at the outside, and not much more than twice the length.But in a few minutes, as the encounter grew more hot, and they held on to each other, and swayed here and there, all thought of the position they occupied was forgotten. One minute Ram, by entwining his leg within those of his adversary, nearly threw him; then, by a dexterous effort, Archy shook himself fairly free. Then they clasped again, swayed here and there, Archy getting far the worse of the encounter from weakness, but, with a final call upon himself, he strove desperately to recover lost ground, and made so fierce an effort to throw Ram in turn, that he succeeded.His effort was not sufficiently well sustained, though, for success to have attended it, but for one fact. They had struggled to the extreme edge of the inward part of the shelf, and as the midshipman was at the end of his strength, and Ram realised it, the boy smiled, thrust back his right leg to give impetus to his next thrust, and his foot went down over the rock.There was a cry, a jerk, and the midshipman was down on his chest, as he had fallen, clinging to the edge, for the young smuggler seemed to have been snatched from his arms, and was now lying thirty feet below on the edge of a sloping rock, part of his body without support, and apparently about to glide off into the waves below.
For the moment Archy Raystoke was puzzled—completely taken aback. This was something upon which he had not counted; and he stood there looking up, as he saw the boy descending with a far greater show of activity than he could have displayed.
Naturally, the first thought was of further flight, but he had already convinced himself that he was again a prisoner, and as, after another glance down at the ledge below to his left, he looked up at Ram, he set his teeth, and laughed in a way that did not promise well for his pursuer.
“What is he coming down for?” he said to himself, as his teeth began to set fast and his hands involuntarily to clench. “Does he think he is going to drag me up there again? He had better not try.”
Meanwhile Ram was descending rapidly, and sending little ambassadors down before him in the shape of pieces of rock and shale, all of which arrived at the ledge in a very inimical way, bounding off, scattering in fragments, or falling with a heavy thud.
From time to time Ram looked down at his escaped prisoner, and then devoted himself to the places where he should never plant his feet, achieving the whole in the most fearless manner, and finishing with a leap which landed him near where Archy stood gazing at him, regularly at bay.
Ram did not hesitate an instant, but dashed at the midshipman to seize him by the jacket, but Archy was on his mettle, and he struck out sharply, a blow in the chest and another in the right shoulder, sending the young smuggler staggering back.
“Oh, that’s it, is it?” cried Ram furiously. “I give you one more chance, though—will you give in, and come back quietly?”
“If you attempt to come near me, you dog,” said Archy slowly through his clenched teeth, “I’ll knock you off here into the sea.”
“Will you?” cried Ram, dashing at his late prisoner again, dodging the blow struck at him, closing with his adversary; and then began a struggle which would have made the blood of an onlooker curdle, so terribly narrow and dangerous was the place where the encounter took place.
Of the pair, Archy Raystoke was a little the bigger, but the smuggler’s son fully made up for any deficiency by his activity, and the hardening his muscles had undergone for years.
No blows were struck, the efforts of Ram being apparently directed to throwing the midshipman down, when he meant to sit upon him till he had reduced him to obedience.
Archy’s tactics were, of course, to prevent this, and rid himself of his adversary, as he felt all the time how horribly risky it was to struggle and wrestle there, for the ledge was six feet wide at the outside, and not much more than twice the length.
But in a few minutes, as the encounter grew more hot, and they held on to each other, and swayed here and there, all thought of the position they occupied was forgotten. One minute Ram, by entwining his leg within those of his adversary, nearly threw him; then, by a dexterous effort, Archy shook himself fairly free. Then they clasped again, swayed here and there, Archy getting far the worse of the encounter from weakness, but, with a final call upon himself, he strove desperately to recover lost ground, and made so fierce an effort to throw Ram in turn, that he succeeded.
His effort was not sufficiently well sustained, though, for success to have attended it, but for one fact. They had struggled to the extreme edge of the inward part of the shelf, and as the midshipman was at the end of his strength, and Ram realised it, the boy smiled, thrust back his right leg to give impetus to his next thrust, and his foot went down over the rock.
There was a cry, a jerk, and the midshipman was down on his chest, as he had fallen, clinging to the edge, for the young smuggler seemed to have been snatched from his arms, and was now lying thirty feet below on the edge of a sloping rock, part of his body without support, and apparently about to glide off into the waves below.
Chapter Twenty Seven.Archy shuddered, his eyes grew fixed, and his whole body seemed to be frozen. The minute before he had been burning with rage, and struggling to gain the mastery over his enemy; now he would have given anything to have undone the past.“Ram!” he cried excitedly,—“Ram, my lad, turn over quickly, and lay hold, or you will be off.”There was no reply. Ram’s face looked ghastly, and his eyes were closed.“I’ve killed him! I know I have!” cried Archy excitedly; and he strained himself more over the edge of the rock, to gaze wildly about for a means of descent, but there was only one: if he wished to get down to where the boy lay, apparently about to slip off into the sea, there was only one way, and that was to jump. Thirty feet! And if he did jump, he could not do so without coming down in contact with the boy, perhaps right on him, when it seemed as if a touch of a finger would send him headlong into the sea.“What shall I do?” thought the midshipman. “It is horrible. Ram!” he shouted. “Rouse up! For goodness’ sake, speak! Try to creep farther on to the rock. Oh, help I help!”He shouted this frantically, but a wild and mournful cry from a gull was the only response, and his voice seemed to be utterly lost in the vast space around.“I shall have murdered the poor fellow,” groaned Archy; and he stared about wildly again, in search of some means of getting to his adversary.None—none whatever. It would have been madness to jump, and he knew it—death—certain death to both. No one could have leaped down that distance on to a shelf of rock without serious injury, and then it would have been impossible to save himself from the rebound which must have sent him headlong into the sea below. This even if the shelf had not already been occupied; and Ram lay there, evidently stunned, if not killed.What did Mr Brough and old Gurr always say? “Be cool in danger—never lose your nerve!”“Yes, that was it!” he said, as he recalled lessons that he had received again and again. But what could he do? Even as he gazed down, he momentarily expected to see Ram glide slowly off, and, with brow covered with great drops of perspiration and his hands wet and cold, the midshipman rose panting to his feet, looked round, and sent up shout after shout for help.Again his voice seemed utterly lost in the air, and a peculiar, querulous cry from the gull, which came slowly sailing round, was all the response he got.“Ram!” he cried at last. “Ram! Don’t play tricks, lad. Speak to me. I want to help you. Tell me what to do—to get help. Can’t you speak?”There was no mistaking the state of affairs; the boy was either dead or completely stunned by his fall.Archy put his hands to his temples, and stood looking down wildly for a few moments, to assure himself that he could not reach his late adversary; and then, perfectly satisfied of the impossibility of the task, he began resolutely to climb up the face of the cliff where he had come down, and, setting his teeth hard, went from crack to crevice and ledge, on and on, seeing nothing but the white face below him on the shelf, and praying the while that the poor lad might not fall before he came back with help.The work was more dangerous than he had anticipated, and twice he slipped, once so badly that he was holding on merely by the sharp edge of a projecting piece of stone, but he found foothold again, drew himself up, and went on climbing again, till, with face streaming with perspiration and his fingers wet with blood, of which he left traces on the stone as he went on, he at last reached the opening he had fought so hard to make, climbed in, turned and leaned out as far as he could, to try and get a glimpse of Ram, and be sure that he had not glided into the sea.He could see nothing; Ram was far below under the projecting rock; and, drawing back once more, the midshipman began to hurry down the steps and then the slope, into the black quarry that he had fancied he had quitted for ever.To his great delight, there, right away before him, was Ram’s lanthorn, burning brightly with the door open, and shining upon the old sails and shipping gear, stores, and remains of wrecks saved from the sea.But he did not stay. He caught up the lanthorn, closed the door lest a puff again should extinguish the candle, and then hesitated a moment or two as a thought struck him.“No,” he said aloud, “I must get help;” and, hurrying toward the opening, he kicked against the basket of provisions the lad had brought back. He made his way to the top of the other slope and shouted,—“Hi, Jemmy!—smuggler! Quick! Come down!”There was no response, for, good-heartedly enough, Ram had, as before-said, repented, and come back alone.What should he do? Climb out, and run for help?No, he did not know where to find it; and by the time he had discovered some of Ram’s people, it would be too late; so, with the way of escape open to him, and freedom ready to welcome him once again, he hurried back, lanthorn in hand, selected a coil of rope from the pile of stores, threw it over his shoulder, passing his left arm through, and, leaving the lanthorn where he had found it, he hurried back to the narrow passage, climbed the slope and the steps up to the opening; and, with the rope hanging like a sword-belt from his shoulder, impeding his movements, and getting caught in the projections over and over again, he once more began to descend.How he got down he hardly knew, but long before he reached the great shelf, he was so incommoded by the rope that he contrived, spread-eagled as he was against the rock face, to get it over his head, and then carefully let it drop, uttering a cry of anguish as he saw it fall, catching against a piece of rock which diverted its course, so that it rested nearly half over the edge, and he clung there, gazing down wildly, expecting to see it disappear, in which case he would have had to climb again for another coil.Fortunately it lodged, and in a few minutes he was down beside it, and close at the end of the great ledge, gazing over wonderingly, and with his eyes half blinded by a mist, expecting to see the narrow shelf below bare.But no; Ram had not moved, and there was yet time.Seizing the coil of rope, he shook it open, and selecting one of the biggest blocks of stone, which had at some time fallen from above, he made one end of the rope fast, tried it to make sure, lowered the other over the edge, and carefully slid down, swinging to and fro, and turning slowly round, to hang for a few moments, trying to plant his foot on the ledge without touching Ram, for he felt more than ever convinced he would glide off at the slightest shock.It was impossible. The only way was to draw up his legs, give himself an impetus by kicking against the rock, swinging to and fro, and then letting himself, at a certain moment when he was well beyond the boy, drop on to the shelf.He tried the experiment, and swung past Ram again and again, but dared not leave go for fear of missing the rock with his feet.At last he ventured: swung well past the prostrate figure, loosened his grasp, alighted on the narrow ledge quite clear, but could not preserve his balance, and fell back, uttering a low cry, as he tightened his grasp upon the rope again, but not till he had slipped rapidly down a good twenty feet, where he began swinging to and fro again.For a few moments it seemed all over; there was the sea at a terrible depth below him, and all that distance to climb up with his hands bleeding and giving him intense pain, while his arms felt half jerked out of their sockets.But he had had plenty of experience in climbing ropes, and, muttering, “Don’t lose your nerve,” he got the line well twisted round his legs, and climbed up again sufficiently high to repeat his former experiment, this time with success, and he stood upon the ledge and loosely knotted the rope about his waist, to guard against letting the end go, before kneeling down tremulously, and getting one hand well in under the collar of the boy’s rough coat.For some minutes he felt giddy; there was a mist before his eyes, and he involuntarily pressed himself close to the rock, expecting to fall, and in a curious, dreamy way he saw himself hanging far below, swinging at the end of the rope.But all this passed off, and, exerting his strength as far as he could in the terribly dangerous, crippled position in which he was, he gave three or four sharp jerks, and succeeded in drawing Ram well on to the shelf, when, in the revulsion of feeling, the dizziness came back, and he felt that he must faint.“Leave off, will yer?” came roughly to his ears, and roused him, telling him that the boy was not dead. “D’yer hear, Jemmy Dadd? Great coward! Father know’d you’d hit me like that, he’d half kill you.”There was a pause, and a sob of relief struggled from Archy’s breast.Then Ram began to mutter again.“Oh, my head!” he groaned. “Oh, my head! Oh, my—”He opened his eyes, and began to stare wildly; then he seemed to recollect himself, and started up to gaze up, then over the side at the sea far below, and lastly at his companion in misfortune.“I reck’lect now,” he said. “We was fighting, and I put my foot over the side, and come down here, hitting my head on the stones, and then I turned sick, and I knew I was falling over, and then I went to sleep. I was half off, wasn’t I, with my legs down?”“Yes. In a horrible position.”“Yes, it wasn’t nice. Oh, my head! But who— Why, you didn’t go and get the rope and come down and pull me on?”Archy nodded.“Is Jemmy here?”“No.”“But did you climb up and get a rope, and come down again and haul me on here?”“Yes,” said the midshipman.Ram stared at him, holding his hand to the back of his head the while, and a couple of minutes must have elapsed before he said,—“Well, you are a rum chap!”Archy grew red. Curious gratitude this seemed for saving the lad’s life.“Didn’t you know the door was open?”“Yes.”“Why didn’t yer run away?”“How could I, and leave you to fall off that place?”“Dunno. Wouldn’t ha’ been nice. Where did you get the rope?”“From close to where I slept.”“Yes, there was a lot there. ’Tain’t cut,” he said, looking at the hand he drew from the back of his head. “What a whop it did come down on the rock!”“Don’t talk about it,” said Archy, with a shiver.“Why not? Father allus said I’d got the thickest head he ever see. I say, though, you—did you—course you did. You climbed up again, and went into the cave, got the rope come down again, and then got down here to help me?”“Yes.”“When you might have run away?”“Of course.”“Thank ye. Shake hands!”
Archy shuddered, his eyes grew fixed, and his whole body seemed to be frozen. The minute before he had been burning with rage, and struggling to gain the mastery over his enemy; now he would have given anything to have undone the past.
“Ram!” he cried excitedly,—“Ram, my lad, turn over quickly, and lay hold, or you will be off.”
There was no reply. Ram’s face looked ghastly, and his eyes were closed.
“I’ve killed him! I know I have!” cried Archy excitedly; and he strained himself more over the edge of the rock, to gaze wildly about for a means of descent, but there was only one: if he wished to get down to where the boy lay, apparently about to slip off into the sea, there was only one way, and that was to jump. Thirty feet! And if he did jump, he could not do so without coming down in contact with the boy, perhaps right on him, when it seemed as if a touch of a finger would send him headlong into the sea.
“What shall I do?” thought the midshipman. “It is horrible. Ram!” he shouted. “Rouse up! For goodness’ sake, speak! Try to creep farther on to the rock. Oh, help I help!”
He shouted this frantically, but a wild and mournful cry from a gull was the only response, and his voice seemed to be utterly lost in the vast space around.
“I shall have murdered the poor fellow,” groaned Archy; and he stared about wildly again, in search of some means of getting to his adversary.
None—none whatever. It would have been madness to jump, and he knew it—death—certain death to both. No one could have leaped down that distance on to a shelf of rock without serious injury, and then it would have been impossible to save himself from the rebound which must have sent him headlong into the sea below. This even if the shelf had not already been occupied; and Ram lay there, evidently stunned, if not killed.
What did Mr Brough and old Gurr always say? “Be cool in danger—never lose your nerve!”
“Yes, that was it!” he said, as he recalled lessons that he had received again and again. But what could he do? Even as he gazed down, he momentarily expected to see Ram glide slowly off, and, with brow covered with great drops of perspiration and his hands wet and cold, the midshipman rose panting to his feet, looked round, and sent up shout after shout for help.
Again his voice seemed utterly lost in the air, and a peculiar, querulous cry from the gull, which came slowly sailing round, was all the response he got.
“Ram!” he cried at last. “Ram! Don’t play tricks, lad. Speak to me. I want to help you. Tell me what to do—to get help. Can’t you speak?”
There was no mistaking the state of affairs; the boy was either dead or completely stunned by his fall.
Archy put his hands to his temples, and stood looking down wildly for a few moments, to assure himself that he could not reach his late adversary; and then, perfectly satisfied of the impossibility of the task, he began resolutely to climb up the face of the cliff where he had come down, and, setting his teeth hard, went from crack to crevice and ledge, on and on, seeing nothing but the white face below him on the shelf, and praying the while that the poor lad might not fall before he came back with help.
The work was more dangerous than he had anticipated, and twice he slipped, once so badly that he was holding on merely by the sharp edge of a projecting piece of stone, but he found foothold again, drew himself up, and went on climbing again, till, with face streaming with perspiration and his fingers wet with blood, of which he left traces on the stone as he went on, he at last reached the opening he had fought so hard to make, climbed in, turned and leaned out as far as he could, to try and get a glimpse of Ram, and be sure that he had not glided into the sea.
He could see nothing; Ram was far below under the projecting rock; and, drawing back once more, the midshipman began to hurry down the steps and then the slope, into the black quarry that he had fancied he had quitted for ever.
To his great delight, there, right away before him, was Ram’s lanthorn, burning brightly with the door open, and shining upon the old sails and shipping gear, stores, and remains of wrecks saved from the sea.
But he did not stay. He caught up the lanthorn, closed the door lest a puff again should extinguish the candle, and then hesitated a moment or two as a thought struck him.
“No,” he said aloud, “I must get help;” and, hurrying toward the opening, he kicked against the basket of provisions the lad had brought back. He made his way to the top of the other slope and shouted,—
“Hi, Jemmy!—smuggler! Quick! Come down!”
There was no response, for, good-heartedly enough, Ram had, as before-said, repented, and come back alone.
What should he do? Climb out, and run for help?
No, he did not know where to find it; and by the time he had discovered some of Ram’s people, it would be too late; so, with the way of escape open to him, and freedom ready to welcome him once again, he hurried back, lanthorn in hand, selected a coil of rope from the pile of stores, threw it over his shoulder, passing his left arm through, and, leaving the lanthorn where he had found it, he hurried back to the narrow passage, climbed the slope and the steps up to the opening; and, with the rope hanging like a sword-belt from his shoulder, impeding his movements, and getting caught in the projections over and over again, he once more began to descend.
How he got down he hardly knew, but long before he reached the great shelf, he was so incommoded by the rope that he contrived, spread-eagled as he was against the rock face, to get it over his head, and then carefully let it drop, uttering a cry of anguish as he saw it fall, catching against a piece of rock which diverted its course, so that it rested nearly half over the edge, and he clung there, gazing down wildly, expecting to see it disappear, in which case he would have had to climb again for another coil.
Fortunately it lodged, and in a few minutes he was down beside it, and close at the end of the great ledge, gazing over wonderingly, and with his eyes half blinded by a mist, expecting to see the narrow shelf below bare.
But no; Ram had not moved, and there was yet time.
Seizing the coil of rope, he shook it open, and selecting one of the biggest blocks of stone, which had at some time fallen from above, he made one end of the rope fast, tried it to make sure, lowered the other over the edge, and carefully slid down, swinging to and fro, and turning slowly round, to hang for a few moments, trying to plant his foot on the ledge without touching Ram, for he felt more than ever convinced he would glide off at the slightest shock.
It was impossible. The only way was to draw up his legs, give himself an impetus by kicking against the rock, swinging to and fro, and then letting himself, at a certain moment when he was well beyond the boy, drop on to the shelf.
He tried the experiment, and swung past Ram again and again, but dared not leave go for fear of missing the rock with his feet.
At last he ventured: swung well past the prostrate figure, loosened his grasp, alighted on the narrow ledge quite clear, but could not preserve his balance, and fell back, uttering a low cry, as he tightened his grasp upon the rope again, but not till he had slipped rapidly down a good twenty feet, where he began swinging to and fro again.
For a few moments it seemed all over; there was the sea at a terrible depth below him, and all that distance to climb up with his hands bleeding and giving him intense pain, while his arms felt half jerked out of their sockets.
But he had had plenty of experience in climbing ropes, and, muttering, “Don’t lose your nerve,” he got the line well twisted round his legs, and climbed up again sufficiently high to repeat his former experiment, this time with success, and he stood upon the ledge and loosely knotted the rope about his waist, to guard against letting the end go, before kneeling down tremulously, and getting one hand well in under the collar of the boy’s rough coat.
For some minutes he felt giddy; there was a mist before his eyes, and he involuntarily pressed himself close to the rock, expecting to fall, and in a curious, dreamy way he saw himself hanging far below, swinging at the end of the rope.
But all this passed off, and, exerting his strength as far as he could in the terribly dangerous, crippled position in which he was, he gave three or four sharp jerks, and succeeded in drawing Ram well on to the shelf, when, in the revulsion of feeling, the dizziness came back, and he felt that he must faint.
“Leave off, will yer?” came roughly to his ears, and roused him, telling him that the boy was not dead. “D’yer hear, Jemmy Dadd? Great coward! Father know’d you’d hit me like that, he’d half kill you.”
There was a pause, and a sob of relief struggled from Archy’s breast.
Then Ram began to mutter again.
“Oh, my head!” he groaned. “Oh, my head! Oh, my—”
He opened his eyes, and began to stare wildly; then he seemed to recollect himself, and started up to gaze up, then over the side at the sea far below, and lastly at his companion in misfortune.
“I reck’lect now,” he said. “We was fighting, and I put my foot over the side, and come down here, hitting my head on the stones, and then I turned sick, and I knew I was falling over, and then I went to sleep. I was half off, wasn’t I, with my legs down?”
“Yes. In a horrible position.”
“Yes, it wasn’t nice. Oh, my head! But who— Why, you didn’t go and get the rope and come down and pull me on?”
Archy nodded.
“Is Jemmy here?”
“No.”
“But did you climb up and get a rope, and come down again and haul me on here?”
“Yes,” said the midshipman.
Ram stared at him, holding his hand to the back of his head the while, and a couple of minutes must have elapsed before he said,—
“Well, you are a rum chap!”
Archy grew red. Curious gratitude this seemed for saving the lad’s life.
“Didn’t you know the door was open?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t yer run away?”
“How could I, and leave you to fall off that place?”
“Dunno. Wouldn’t ha’ been nice. Where did you get the rope?”
“From close to where I slept.”
“Yes, there was a lot there. ’Tain’t cut,” he said, looking at the hand he drew from the back of his head. “What a whop it did come down on the rock!”
“Don’t talk about it,” said Archy, with a shiver.
“Why not? Father allus said I’d got the thickest head he ever see. I say, though, you—did you—course you did. You climbed up again, and went into the cave, got the rope come down again, and then got down here to help me?”
“Yes.”
“When you might have run away?”
“Of course.”
“Thank ye. Shake hands!”
Chapter Twenty Eight.Ram sat there holding out his hand to the midshipman, but it was not taken, and for a space they gazed into each other’s eyes. The silence was broken by Ram.“Well,” he said at last, “won’t you shake hands?”“An officer and a gentleman cannot shake hands with one like you,” replied Archy coldly.“Oh, can’t he?” said Ram quietly. “You’re a gentleman. Was it being a gentleman made you come down and pull me on here.”“I don’t know whether being a gentleman made me do it,” said Archy coldly. “I saw you would lose your life if I did not get a rope and come to you, and so I did it.”“Yes; that’s being a gentleman made you do that,” said Ram thoughtfully. “None of our fellows would have done that.”“I suppose not.”“I know I wouldn’t.”“Yes, you would.”Ram looked the midshipman hard in the face again.“You mean, if I’d seen you lying down here like I was, I should have gone and fetched the rope and pulled you up?”“Yes; I am sure you would.”Ram sat in his old position, with his hand to the back of his aching head.“But it’s being a gentleman made you do it.”“No; anybody who saw a person in danger would try and save his life; and you would have tried to save mine.”“But I might have slipped and gone over the cliff.”“You wouldn’t have thought about that,” said Archy quietly. “You did not think about the danger when you saw me trying to escape.”“No, I didn’t, did I?” said Ram thoughtfully. “I knew how savage father would be if you got away and fetched the sailors; and he told me I was to see you didn’t get out, so I come down after you.”“And you would have done as I said.”“Well, praps I should,” said Ram, laughing; “but, as we didn’t neither of us go over, it’s no use to talk about it. My! How it does ache!”He turned himself a little, so as to plant his back against the rock, and let his legs hang down over the edge.“That’s more comf’table. Bit of a rest. Hard work getting down here and wrastling.”Archy was in so cramped and awkward a position, half kneeling, that he followed his companion’s example, shuddering slightly, though, as he let his legs go down, and put his hands beside him to press his back firmly against the rock.“Frightened?” said Ram, who was watching him.“I don’t know about being frightened. It would be a terrible fall.”“Oh, I don’t know,” said Ram, leaning forward and gazing down into the void. “Water’s precious deep here. Such lots of great conger eels, six foot long, ’bout the holes in the bottom. Jemmy Dadd and me’s caught ’em before now. Most strong enough to pull you out of the boat. Dessay, if you went down, you’d come up again, but you couldn’t get ashore.”“Why? A good swimmer could get round the point there, and make for the ledge where I saw you and that man land.”“No, you couldn’t,” said Ram; “it’s hard work to get round there with a boat. You do have to pull. That’s where the race is, and it would carry you out to—oh?”The boy was looking down between his legs as he spoke; and the midshipman just had time to dart forward his hand, catch him by the shoulder, and drag him back, or he would have gone off the rock.Ram lurched over sidewise, his sun-browned face mottled and strange-looking, as his head dropped slowly over on to the midshipman’s shoulder, where it lay for a good ten minutes, Archy passing his arm round the boy, and supporting him as he lay there, breathing heavily, with his eyes half-closed.It was a terrible position; and a cold, damp perspiration bedewed the midshipman’s face, as he felt how near they both were to a terrible end. The deep water after that awful fall, the fierce current which would carry him out to sea—and then came shuddering thoughts of the great, long, serpent-like congers, of whose doings horrible stories were current among the sailors.At last, to his great relief, Ram uttered a deep sigh, and sat up, smiling at his companion.“I’ve felt like that before,” he said. “Come over all at once sick and giddy, like you do if you lean down too much in the sun. I should have gone over, shouldn’t I, if you hadn’t ketched me?”“Don’t talk about it.”“Oh, very well; it was hitting my head such a crack, I suppose. I say, though, you never thought you could get away down here, did you?”“Meant to try,” said Archy laconically.“Yah! What was the good, I knowed you wouldn’t; but I meant to fetch you back. Me and Jemmy Dadd come down here once after birds’ eggs, before father had the place up there quite blocked up. It used to be a hole just big enough to creep through. Jemmy stopped up on that patch where you and me wrastled, and let me down with a rope. There’s no getting no farther than this.”“Not with a rope?”“Well, with a very long one you might slide down to the water, but what’s the good, without there was a boat waiting? You hadn’t got the boat, and you didn’t bring no rope. No use to try to get away.”The words seemed more and more the words of truth as the midshipman listened, and he was compelled to own in his own mind that he had failed in his attempt; but a question seemed to leap from his lips next moment, and he said sharply,—“Perhaps there’s no getting down, but any one might climb up right to the top of the cliff.”“Fly might, or a beedle,” said the boy, laughing. “Why, a rabbit couldn’t, and I’ve seen them do some rum things, cutting up the rocks where they’ve been straight up like a wall. Why, it comes right over up nigh the top. No, father’s right; place is safe enough from the seaside, and so it is from the land. Now, then, let’s go back.”“You can go,” said Archy coldly. “I’m going to stop here.”“That you won’t,” said Ram sharply. “You’re a-coming up with me. Yah! What’s the good o’ being obstinate? We don’t want to have another fight. Don’t you see you can’t get away?”“I will get away,” said Archy sternly.“Well, you won’t get off this way, till your wings grow,” said Ram, laughing. “Come on, mate, let’s get back.”Archy hesitated, but was obliged to come to the conclusion that he was beaten this time, and he turned slowly to his companion and said,—“Can you climb that rope?”“Can I climb that rope? I should think I can!”“But dare you venture now?”Ram put his hand to his head, and gazed up thoughtfully.“Well, it would be stoopid if I was to turn dizzy again. S’pose you untie the rope from round you, and let me tie it round my waist. Then you go up first, and when I come, you’ll be ready to lend me a hand.”“Yes, that will be best,” said Archy.“Without you want to leave me?” said the boy, laughing.The midshipman made no reply. There was an arduous task before him, and his nerves were unstrung. After he had unfastened the end of the rope and passed it to Ram, who did not secure the end about him, but the middle, after he had nearly drawn it tight, so that, if he did slip, the fall would not be so long. Then reluctantly, but feeling that it must be done, Archy climbed the thirty feet of rope between him and the great ledge, slowly and surely, glad to lie down and close his eyes as soon as he was in safety so far.He tried to, but he dared not look over when the rope began to quiver again. He contented himself with taking hold near the edge, and crouched there, picturing the boy turning dizzy once more from his injury, letting go, and dropping with a terrible jerk to the extent of the rope where it was tied. Then, as he felt the strong hemp quiver in his hands, he found himself wondering if the strands would snap one by one with the terrible strain of the jerk, and whether the boy would drop down into the sea.What should he do then?What should he do if the rope did not part? He did not think he would have strength to draw the boy up, and, if he did, he was so unnerved now, that he did not believe he would be able to drag him over the edge on to the rock platform.There! Ram must be turning giddy, he was so long; and, unable to bear the pressure longer, Archy opened his eyes and crept nearer to the edge, to face the horror of seeing the boy’s wild upturned eyes.But he saw nothing of the kind, save in the workings of his own disordered imagination. What he did see was Ram’s frank-looking rustic face close up, and a hand was reached over the edge.“You may get hold of me anywhere if you like,” said the boy, “and give a hand. That’s your style, orficer! Pull away, and up she comes. That’s it!” he said, as he crept over the edge. “Thank’ee. I aren’t smuggled.”They both sat down for a few minutes, while Ram untied the rope from his waist and from round the big block of stone, before beginning to coil it up.“I say,” he said, as he formed ring after ring of rope, “that rock isn’t very safe. If I’d slipped, and the rope hadn’t snapped, that big stone would have come down atop of me, and what a mess you’d have been in, if father had said you pitched me off!”“Let’s get back,” said the midshipman, who felt sick at heart; and he moved toward the place where he had been down and up three times.“Wait a moment,” said Ram, securing the end of the rope, and throwing the coil over his shoulder. “That’s right. I’ll go first. Know the way?”“Because you don’t trust me,” said Archy angrily.“That’s it,” said Ram. “Door’s open, and you might get out.”Archy’s teeth grated together, but he said nothing, only began to climb, following the boy patiently till they were nearing the opening, when he started so violently that he nearly lost his hold.For a voice came from above his head,—“Got him, Ram?”“Yes, father; here he is.”For the moment the midshipman felt disposed to descend again, but he kept on, and a minute later he looked up, to see Ram’s frank face looking out of the hole, and the boy stretched out his hand.“Want any help? Oh, all right then!”“Did you think you’d get out that way, youngster?” said Shackle, as the midshipman stood erect at the top of the rough stairs.“I thought I’d try,” said the lad stiffly.“Took a lot o’ trouble for nothing, boy,” said the smuggler. “I come to see what was amiss, Ram, boy, you was so long. Don’t come again without Jemmy Dadd or some one.”“No, father.”“So you thought you’d get away, did you?” said the smuggler, with an ugly smile. “Ought to have known better, boy. You wouldn’t be kept here, if there was a way for you to escape.”Archy felt too much depressed to make any sharp reply, and the smuggler turned to his son.“What’s the matter with you?”“Bit of a tumble, father, that’s all,” said the boy cheerfully, as he placed his hand to the back of his head.“You should take care, then; rocks are harder than heads. Hi! You Jemmy Dadd!”“Hullo!” came out of the darkness.“Get Tom to help you to-morrow. Bring a bushel or two o’ lime stuff, and stop up this hole, all but a bit big enough for a pigeon to go in and out. It’ll give him a taste o’ light and air. Now, youngster, on with you. Show the lanthorn, Jemmy.”The man came forward, and Archy was made to follow him, the smuggler and his son coming on behind; and ten minutes later the prisoner was seated in his old place in the darkness, with Ram’s basket of provisions for consolation. As he sat there, listening to the departing footsteps, and feeling more and more that it was quite true,—escape must be impossible down the cliff, or else they would not have left him with the opening unguarded,—there was the dull, heavy report of the closing trap-door, and the rattle and snap of bolts, and that followed by the rumbling down of the pieces of stone.He had pretty well thought out the correct theory of this noise, that it was on purpose to hide the trap-door from any prying eyes which might pass, and prying eyes must be few, he felt, or else the smugglers would not have had recourse to so clumsy a contrivance.He thought all this over again, as he sat there wearied out and despondent, for in the morning his task had seemed as good as achieved, and now he was face to face with the fact, after all that labour, that it had been in vain, and he was more a prisoner than ever.“Not quite so badly off as some, though,” he thought, as, moved thereto by the terrible hunger he felt, he stretched out his hand for the basket. Not bread and water, but good tasty provisions, and— “What’s this in the bottle?” he asked himself, as he removed the cork.It was good wholesome cider, and being seventeen, and growing fast, Archy forgot everything for the next half-hour in the enjoyment of a hearty meal.An hour later, just as he was thinking of going to the opening to sit there and look out at the evening sky, he dropped off fast asleep, and was wakened by the coming of two of the smugglers, who busied themselves in the repairs of the broken wall.
Ram sat there holding out his hand to the midshipman, but it was not taken, and for a space they gazed into each other’s eyes. The silence was broken by Ram.
“Well,” he said at last, “won’t you shake hands?”
“An officer and a gentleman cannot shake hands with one like you,” replied Archy coldly.
“Oh, can’t he?” said Ram quietly. “You’re a gentleman. Was it being a gentleman made you come down and pull me on here.”
“I don’t know whether being a gentleman made me do it,” said Archy coldly. “I saw you would lose your life if I did not get a rope and come to you, and so I did it.”
“Yes; that’s being a gentleman made you do that,” said Ram thoughtfully. “None of our fellows would have done that.”
“I suppose not.”
“I know I wouldn’t.”
“Yes, you would.”
Ram looked the midshipman hard in the face again.
“You mean, if I’d seen you lying down here like I was, I should have gone and fetched the rope and pulled you up?”
“Yes; I am sure you would.”
Ram sat in his old position, with his hand to the back of his aching head.
“But it’s being a gentleman made you do it.”
“No; anybody who saw a person in danger would try and save his life; and you would have tried to save mine.”
“But I might have slipped and gone over the cliff.”
“You wouldn’t have thought about that,” said Archy quietly. “You did not think about the danger when you saw me trying to escape.”
“No, I didn’t, did I?” said Ram thoughtfully. “I knew how savage father would be if you got away and fetched the sailors; and he told me I was to see you didn’t get out, so I come down after you.”
“And you would have done as I said.”
“Well, praps I should,” said Ram, laughing; “but, as we didn’t neither of us go over, it’s no use to talk about it. My! How it does ache!”
He turned himself a little, so as to plant his back against the rock, and let his legs hang down over the edge.
“That’s more comf’table. Bit of a rest. Hard work getting down here and wrastling.”
Archy was in so cramped and awkward a position, half kneeling, that he followed his companion’s example, shuddering slightly, though, as he let his legs go down, and put his hands beside him to press his back firmly against the rock.
“Frightened?” said Ram, who was watching him.
“I don’t know about being frightened. It would be a terrible fall.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Ram, leaning forward and gazing down into the void. “Water’s precious deep here. Such lots of great conger eels, six foot long, ’bout the holes in the bottom. Jemmy Dadd and me’s caught ’em before now. Most strong enough to pull you out of the boat. Dessay, if you went down, you’d come up again, but you couldn’t get ashore.”
“Why? A good swimmer could get round the point there, and make for the ledge where I saw you and that man land.”
“No, you couldn’t,” said Ram; “it’s hard work to get round there with a boat. You do have to pull. That’s where the race is, and it would carry you out to—oh?”
The boy was looking down between his legs as he spoke; and the midshipman just had time to dart forward his hand, catch him by the shoulder, and drag him back, or he would have gone off the rock.
Ram lurched over sidewise, his sun-browned face mottled and strange-looking, as his head dropped slowly over on to the midshipman’s shoulder, where it lay for a good ten minutes, Archy passing his arm round the boy, and supporting him as he lay there, breathing heavily, with his eyes half-closed.
It was a terrible position; and a cold, damp perspiration bedewed the midshipman’s face, as he felt how near they both were to a terrible end. The deep water after that awful fall, the fierce current which would carry him out to sea—and then came shuddering thoughts of the great, long, serpent-like congers, of whose doings horrible stories were current among the sailors.
At last, to his great relief, Ram uttered a deep sigh, and sat up, smiling at his companion.
“I’ve felt like that before,” he said. “Come over all at once sick and giddy, like you do if you lean down too much in the sun. I should have gone over, shouldn’t I, if you hadn’t ketched me?”
“Don’t talk about it.”
“Oh, very well; it was hitting my head such a crack, I suppose. I say, though, you never thought you could get away down here, did you?”
“Meant to try,” said Archy laconically.
“Yah! What was the good, I knowed you wouldn’t; but I meant to fetch you back. Me and Jemmy Dadd come down here once after birds’ eggs, before father had the place up there quite blocked up. It used to be a hole just big enough to creep through. Jemmy stopped up on that patch where you and me wrastled, and let me down with a rope. There’s no getting no farther than this.”
“Not with a rope?”
“Well, with a very long one you might slide down to the water, but what’s the good, without there was a boat waiting? You hadn’t got the boat, and you didn’t bring no rope. No use to try to get away.”
The words seemed more and more the words of truth as the midshipman listened, and he was compelled to own in his own mind that he had failed in his attempt; but a question seemed to leap from his lips next moment, and he said sharply,—
“Perhaps there’s no getting down, but any one might climb up right to the top of the cliff.”
“Fly might, or a beedle,” said the boy, laughing. “Why, a rabbit couldn’t, and I’ve seen them do some rum things, cutting up the rocks where they’ve been straight up like a wall. Why, it comes right over up nigh the top. No, father’s right; place is safe enough from the seaside, and so it is from the land. Now, then, let’s go back.”
“You can go,” said Archy coldly. “I’m going to stop here.”
“That you won’t,” said Ram sharply. “You’re a-coming up with me. Yah! What’s the good o’ being obstinate? We don’t want to have another fight. Don’t you see you can’t get away?”
“I will get away,” said Archy sternly.
“Well, you won’t get off this way, till your wings grow,” said Ram, laughing. “Come on, mate, let’s get back.”
Archy hesitated, but was obliged to come to the conclusion that he was beaten this time, and he turned slowly to his companion and said,—
“Can you climb that rope?”
“Can I climb that rope? I should think I can!”
“But dare you venture now?”
Ram put his hand to his head, and gazed up thoughtfully.
“Well, it would be stoopid if I was to turn dizzy again. S’pose you untie the rope from round you, and let me tie it round my waist. Then you go up first, and when I come, you’ll be ready to lend me a hand.”
“Yes, that will be best,” said Archy.
“Without you want to leave me?” said the boy, laughing.
The midshipman made no reply. There was an arduous task before him, and his nerves were unstrung. After he had unfastened the end of the rope and passed it to Ram, who did not secure the end about him, but the middle, after he had nearly drawn it tight, so that, if he did slip, the fall would not be so long. Then reluctantly, but feeling that it must be done, Archy climbed the thirty feet of rope between him and the great ledge, slowly and surely, glad to lie down and close his eyes as soon as he was in safety so far.
He tried to, but he dared not look over when the rope began to quiver again. He contented himself with taking hold near the edge, and crouched there, picturing the boy turning dizzy once more from his injury, letting go, and dropping with a terrible jerk to the extent of the rope where it was tied. Then, as he felt the strong hemp quiver in his hands, he found himself wondering if the strands would snap one by one with the terrible strain of the jerk, and whether the boy would drop down into the sea.
What should he do then?
What should he do if the rope did not part? He did not think he would have strength to draw the boy up, and, if he did, he was so unnerved now, that he did not believe he would be able to drag him over the edge on to the rock platform.
There! Ram must be turning giddy, he was so long; and, unable to bear the pressure longer, Archy opened his eyes and crept nearer to the edge, to face the horror of seeing the boy’s wild upturned eyes.
But he saw nothing of the kind, save in the workings of his own disordered imagination. What he did see was Ram’s frank-looking rustic face close up, and a hand was reached over the edge.
“You may get hold of me anywhere if you like,” said the boy, “and give a hand. That’s your style, orficer! Pull away, and up she comes. That’s it!” he said, as he crept over the edge. “Thank’ee. I aren’t smuggled.”
They both sat down for a few minutes, while Ram untied the rope from his waist and from round the big block of stone, before beginning to coil it up.
“I say,” he said, as he formed ring after ring of rope, “that rock isn’t very safe. If I’d slipped, and the rope hadn’t snapped, that big stone would have come down atop of me, and what a mess you’d have been in, if father had said you pitched me off!”
“Let’s get back,” said the midshipman, who felt sick at heart; and he moved toward the place where he had been down and up three times.
“Wait a moment,” said Ram, securing the end of the rope, and throwing the coil over his shoulder. “That’s right. I’ll go first. Know the way?”
“Because you don’t trust me,” said Archy angrily.
“That’s it,” said Ram. “Door’s open, and you might get out.”
Archy’s teeth grated together, but he said nothing, only began to climb, following the boy patiently till they were nearing the opening, when he started so violently that he nearly lost his hold.
For a voice came from above his head,—
“Got him, Ram?”
“Yes, father; here he is.”
For the moment the midshipman felt disposed to descend again, but he kept on, and a minute later he looked up, to see Ram’s frank face looking out of the hole, and the boy stretched out his hand.
“Want any help? Oh, all right then!”
“Did you think you’d get out that way, youngster?” said Shackle, as the midshipman stood erect at the top of the rough stairs.
“I thought I’d try,” said the lad stiffly.
“Took a lot o’ trouble for nothing, boy,” said the smuggler. “I come to see what was amiss, Ram, boy, you was so long. Don’t come again without Jemmy Dadd or some one.”
“No, father.”
“So you thought you’d get away, did you?” said the smuggler, with an ugly smile. “Ought to have known better, boy. You wouldn’t be kept here, if there was a way for you to escape.”
Archy felt too much depressed to make any sharp reply, and the smuggler turned to his son.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“Bit of a tumble, father, that’s all,” said the boy cheerfully, as he placed his hand to the back of his head.
“You should take care, then; rocks are harder than heads. Hi! You Jemmy Dadd!”
“Hullo!” came out of the darkness.
“Get Tom to help you to-morrow. Bring a bushel or two o’ lime stuff, and stop up this hole, all but a bit big enough for a pigeon to go in and out. It’ll give him a taste o’ light and air. Now, youngster, on with you. Show the lanthorn, Jemmy.”
The man came forward, and Archy was made to follow him, the smuggler and his son coming on behind; and ten minutes later the prisoner was seated in his old place in the darkness, with Ram’s basket of provisions for consolation. As he sat there, listening to the departing footsteps, and feeling more and more that it was quite true,—escape must be impossible down the cliff, or else they would not have left him with the opening unguarded,—there was the dull, heavy report of the closing trap-door, and the rattle and snap of bolts, and that followed by the rumbling down of the pieces of stone.
He had pretty well thought out the correct theory of this noise, that it was on purpose to hide the trap-door from any prying eyes which might pass, and prying eyes must be few, he felt, or else the smugglers would not have had recourse to so clumsy a contrivance.
He thought all this over again, as he sat there wearied out and despondent, for in the morning his task had seemed as good as achieved, and now he was face to face with the fact, after all that labour, that it had been in vain, and he was more a prisoner than ever.
“Not quite so badly off as some, though,” he thought, as, moved thereto by the terrible hunger he felt, he stretched out his hand for the basket. Not bread and water, but good tasty provisions, and— “What’s this in the bottle?” he asked himself, as he removed the cork.
It was good wholesome cider, and being seventeen, and growing fast, Archy forgot everything for the next half-hour in the enjoyment of a hearty meal.
An hour later, just as he was thinking of going to the opening to sit there and look out at the evening sky, he dropped off fast asleep, and was wakened by the coming of two of the smugglers, who busied themselves in the repairs of the broken wall.
Chapter Twenty Nine.That day Jemmy Dadd brought him his food, and the next day, and the next.“What did it mean?” he asked himself. He could understand this man being the bearer while he was employed at the mason work; but when that was over, he felt puzzled at Ram not coming.Then he began to wonder whether the boy was ill in consequence of his fall, and he longed to ask, but, as everything he said to Dadd was received in gloomy silence, he felt indisposed to question the man, and waited, patiently or impatiently, till there should be a change.The change did come, Ram appearing the next day with the basket; but his father and several other men entered the quarry, and something was brought in—what he did not see.Ram came up to him with his basket, but, just as he began speaking, Shackle called him away, and once more the prisoner was left alone.He partook of his meal, feeling more dull and dispirited than ever, and a walk afterwards to the little opening, just big enough to allow of his arm being thrust in, afforded no relief. For he wanted, to talk to Ram about their adventures, and to try whether he could not win over the boy to help him to escape.The next day arrived, and, as of old, Ram came, with Jemmy Dadd left at the door.“He’s grumbling,” said the boy, “about having to help watch over you.”“Then why not put an end to it?” cried Archy, eagerly dashing into the question next his heart, for his confinement now grew unbearable.“How?”“Help me to escape.”The boy laughed.“Aren’t you going to ask me how I am?”“No; why should I?”“’Cause you made me have that fall, and my head’s been trebble. I’ve been in bed three days.”“I am sorry for you,” said Archy; “but I can only think of one thing—how to get away.”“No good to think about that. Father won’t let you go; I asked him.”“You did, Ram?”“Yes, I asked him—though you wouldn’t be friends and shake hands.”“What did he say?” cried Archy, ignoring the latter part of his gaoler’s remarks.“Said I was a young fool, and he’d rope’s-end me if I talked any more such stuff.”The midshipman did not notice it, but there was a quiet and softened air in Ram’s behaviour toward him, and the boy seemed reluctant to go, but, in the midshipman’s natural desire to get away, he could think of nothing else but self.“It would not be the act of a fool to set one of the officers of the Royal Navy at liberty.”“He says it would, for it would be the end of us all here. The sailors would come and pretty well turn us out of house and home. No; he won’t let you go.”“How long is he going to keep me here?”“Don’t know. Long as he likes.”That last sentence seemed to drive the prisoner into a fit of anger, which lasted till the boy’s next coming.The prisoner had been listening anxiously for the sound which betokened the visit of his young gaoler, and he was longing to have speech with him; but, telling himself that the boy was an enemy, he punished himself, as soon as the lanthorn came swaying through the darkness, by throwing himself down and turning away his head.Ram came up and held the lanthorn over him.“Morning. How are you?”Archy made no reply.“’Sleep?”Still no answer.“You aren’t asleep. Come, look up. I’ve brought you four plum puffs, and a cream-cheese mother made.”“Hang your plum duffs and cream-cheeses!” cried Archy, starting up in a rage.“Didn’t say plum duff; said plum puffs.”“Take ’em away then. Bread and water’s the proper thing for prisoners.”“Oh, I say, you wouldn’t get fat on that.”“Will you let me out?”“No.”“Then I warn you fairly. One of these days, or nights, or whatever they are, I’ll lie wait for you, and break your head with a stone, and then get away.”Ram laughed.“What?” cried the prisoner fiercely.“I was only larfin’.”“What at?”“You. Think I don’t know better than that? You wouldn’t be such a coward.”“Oh, wouldn’t I?”“Not you,” said Ram, sitting down quietly, and making the lid of his basket squeak. “You know I can’t help it.”“Yes, you can. You could let me out.”“Father would kill me if I did. Why, if I let you out, you’d come with a lot o’ men, and there’d be a big fight, and some of our chaps wounded and some killed, and if we didn’t whop you, our place would be all smashed up, and father and all of ’em in prison.”“And serve ’em right!”“Ah, but we don’t think so. That’s what you’d do, isn’t it?”“Of course it is.”“Well, then, I can’t let you go. ’Sides, if I said I would, there’s always Jemmy Dadd, or big Tom Dunley, or father waiting outside, and they’d be sure to nab you.”“But you might come by night and get me out.”“No,” said the boy sturdily, “I couldn’t.”“Then you’re a beast. Get out of my sight before I half kill you!”“Have a puff.”“Take them away, you thieving scoundrel!” cried Archy, who was half mad with disappointment. “You come here professing to be civil, and yet you won’t help me.”“Can’t.”“You can, sir.”“And you wouldn’t like me if I did.”“Yes, I should, and I never could be grateful enough.”“No, you wouldn’t. You’d know I was a sneak and a traitor, as you call it, to father and all our chaps, and you’d never like me.”“Like you! I tell you I should consider you my best friend.”“Not you. I know better than that. Have a puff.”“Will you take your miserable stuff away?”“Have some cream-cheese and new bread.”Archy made a blow at him, but Ram only drew back slightly.“Don’t be a coward,” he said. “You’re an officer and a gentleman, you told me one day, and you keep on trying to coax me into doing what you know would be making me a regular sneak. What should I say when you were gone?”“Nothing,” cried the prisoner. “Escape with me. Come on board, and the lieutenant will listen to what I say, and take you, and we’ll make you a regular man-o’-war’s-man.”“And set me to fight agen my father, and all my old mates?”“No; you should not do that.”“And you’d call me a miserable sneak.”“I shouldn’t.”“Then you’d think I was, and I should know it, so it would be all the same.”“Then you will not help me?”“Can’t.”“You will not, you mean,” said Archy bitterly. “You’d sooner keep me here to rot in the darkness.”“No, I wouldn’t, and I’d let you out if I could,” cried Ram, with animation. “I like you, that I do, because you’re such a brave chap, and not afraid of any of us. S’pose I was a prisoner in your boat, would you let me out?”“That’s a different thing,” said Archy proudly. “I am a king’s officer, and you are only a smuggler’s boy.”“I can’t help that,” said Ram warmly. “You wouldn’t let me go because you couldn’t, and I won’t let you go because I can’t.”“Then get out of this place, and let me be.”“Shan’t. It’s horrid dull and dark here, and lonesome. I shouldn’t like it, and that’s why I get mother to give me all sorts o’ good things to bring for you, and save ’em up. Father would make a row if he knew. I do like you.”“Get out!”“Ah, you may say that, but I’d do anything for you now.”“Then let me go.”“’Cept that.”“Knock me on the head, then, and put me out of my misery.”“And ’cept that too. I say, don’t be snarky with me. You must stop here as long as father likes, but why shouldn’t you and me be friends? I’ve brought you a Jew’s harp to learn to play when you’re alone.”Archy uttered an ejaculation full of contempt, and snatched the proffered toy and hurled it as far as he could.“It was a sixpenny one, and I walked all the way to Dunmouth and back to get it for you—twenty miles. It aren’t much of a thing for an orficer and a gentleman, though, I know. But, I say, look here, would you like to learn to play the fiddle?”“Will you take your chattering tongue somewhere else?”“’Cause,” continued Ram, without heeding the midshipman’s petulant words, “I could borrow big Tom Dunley’s old fiddle. He’d lend it to me, and I’d smuggle it here.”“Smuggle, of course,” sneered Archy.“In its green baize bag. I could teach you how to play one toon.”Archy remained silent, as he sat on a stone, listening contemptuously to the lad’s words.“I thought I could often come here, and sit and talk to you, and bring a light, and I brought these.”He opened the door of the horn lanthorn, and produced from his pocket a very dirty old pack of cards, at which Archy stared with profound disgust.“You and me could play a game sometimes, and then you wouldn’t feel half so dull. I say, have a puff now!”There was no reply.“Shall I bring you some apples?”Archy threw himself down, and lay on his side, with his head resting upon his hand, gazing into the darkness.“We’ve got lots o’ fox-whelps as we make cider of, and some red-cheeks which are ever so much better. I’ll bring you some.”“Don’t,” replied Archy coldly. “Bring me my liberty. I don’t want anything else.”“Won’t you have the Jew’s harp, if I go and find it?”“No.”“Nor yet the fiddle, if I borrow it?”“No.”“I say, don’t be so snarky with me. I can’t help it. I was obliged to do what I did, same as you’d have been if it had been t’other way on. Look here; let you and me be friends, and I could come often and sit with you. I’ll stay now if you like. Let’s have a game at cards.”Archy made no reply, and Ram sighed.“I’m very sorry,” he said sadly; “and I’d leave you the lanthorn if you like to ask me.”“I’m not going to ask favours of such a set of thieves and scoundrels,” cried the midshipman passionately; “and once more I warn you that, if you come pestering me with your proposals, I shall knock you down with a stone, and then escape.”“Not you,” replied Ram, with a quiet laugh.“Not escape?”“I meant couldn’t knock me down with a stone.”“And pray why?”“’Cause I tell you agen you couldn’t be such a coward. I’m going now.”No notice was taken of the remark.“Like another blanket?”No answer.“I’m going to leave the basket and the puffs and cheese. Anything else I can get you?”Archy was moved by the lad’s friendly advances, but he felt as if he would rather die than show it, and he turned impatiently away from the light shed by the lanthorn.“I’ll bring you some apples next time I come, and p’r’aps then you’ll have a game at cards.”There was no reply, so Ram slowly shut the door of the lanthorn, turning the bright light to a soft yellowish glow, and rising to his knees.“Do let me stop and have a game.”“Let me stop and talk to you, then.”There was no reply to either proposal, and just then there came a hoarse—“Ram ahoy!”“A-hoy!” cried the lad. “I must go now. That’s Jemmy Dadd shouting for me.”Archy made no reply, and the boy rose, set down the basket beside where he had been kneeling, and stood gazing down at the prisoner.“Like some ’bacco to chew?” he said. Then, as there was no answer, he went slowly away, with the prisoner watching the dull glow of the lanthorn till it disappeared behind the great pillars, there was a faint suggestion of light farther on, then darkness again, the dull echoing bang of the heavy trap-door and rattle of the thin slabs of stone which seemed to be thrown over it to act as a cover or screen, and then once again the silence and utter darkness which sat upon the prisoner like lead.He uttered a low groan.“Am I never to see the bright sun and the sparkling sea again?” he said sadly. “I never used to think they were half so beautiful as they are, till I was shut up in this horrible hole. Oh, if I could only get away!”He started up now, and began to walk up and down over a space clear of loose stones, which he seemed to know now by instinct, but he stopped short directly.“If that young ruffian saw me, he’d say I was like a wild beast in a cage. He’d call me a monkey again, as he did before. Oh, I wish I had him here!”The intention was for the administration of punishment, but just then Archy kicked against the basket, and that completely changed the current of his thoughts.“The beggar wants to be civil,” he said. “He is civil. It was kind of him to bring the things to amuse me, and better food. Wants to be friends! But who’s going to be friends with a scoundrel like that? I don’t want his rubbish—only to be able to keep strong and well, so as to escape first chance.”“Likes me, does he?” muttered the midshipman, after a pause. “I should think he does. Such impudence! Friends indeed! Oh, it’s insufferable!”Archy’s words were very bitter, but, somehow, all the time he kept thinking about their adventure, and the lad’s bravery, and then about his having saved him.“I suppose he liked that,” said Archy, after a time, talking aloud, for it was pleasant to hear a voice in the solemn darkness, even if it was only his own.He grew a little more softened in his feelings, and, after resisting the temptation for three hours, and vowing that he would keep to bread and water and starve himself before he would let them think he received their gifts, he found himself thinking more and more of the friendly feeling of the boy and his show of gratitude. Then he recalled all that had passed about the proposal to escape—to set him at liberty—to be his companion; and he was obliged to own that Ram had behaved very well.“For him,” he said contemptuously, and then such a peculiarly strong suggestion of its being dinner-time reminded him that he ought to partake of food, that he opened the basket, and the temptation was resisted no longer.Pride is all very well in places, but there is a strength in cold roast chicken, plum puffs, and cream-cheese, that will, or did in this case, sweep everything before it; and, after making a very hearty meal, the midshipman almost wished that he had Ram there to talk to as a humble companion in that weary solitude.“He’s a miserable, contemptible beggar,” said Archy at last, “but I need not have been quite so rough with him as I was.”
That day Jemmy Dadd brought him his food, and the next day, and the next.
“What did it mean?” he asked himself. He could understand this man being the bearer while he was employed at the mason work; but when that was over, he felt puzzled at Ram not coming.
Then he began to wonder whether the boy was ill in consequence of his fall, and he longed to ask, but, as everything he said to Dadd was received in gloomy silence, he felt indisposed to question the man, and waited, patiently or impatiently, till there should be a change.
The change did come, Ram appearing the next day with the basket; but his father and several other men entered the quarry, and something was brought in—what he did not see.
Ram came up to him with his basket, but, just as he began speaking, Shackle called him away, and once more the prisoner was left alone.
He partook of his meal, feeling more dull and dispirited than ever, and a walk afterwards to the little opening, just big enough to allow of his arm being thrust in, afforded no relief. For he wanted, to talk to Ram about their adventures, and to try whether he could not win over the boy to help him to escape.
The next day arrived, and, as of old, Ram came, with Jemmy Dadd left at the door.
“He’s grumbling,” said the boy, “about having to help watch over you.”
“Then why not put an end to it?” cried Archy, eagerly dashing into the question next his heart, for his confinement now grew unbearable.
“How?”
“Help me to escape.”
The boy laughed.
“Aren’t you going to ask me how I am?”
“No; why should I?”
“’Cause you made me have that fall, and my head’s been trebble. I’ve been in bed three days.”
“I am sorry for you,” said Archy; “but I can only think of one thing—how to get away.”
“No good to think about that. Father won’t let you go; I asked him.”
“You did, Ram?”
“Yes, I asked him—though you wouldn’t be friends and shake hands.”
“What did he say?” cried Archy, ignoring the latter part of his gaoler’s remarks.
“Said I was a young fool, and he’d rope’s-end me if I talked any more such stuff.”
The midshipman did not notice it, but there was a quiet and softened air in Ram’s behaviour toward him, and the boy seemed reluctant to go, but, in the midshipman’s natural desire to get away, he could think of nothing else but self.
“It would not be the act of a fool to set one of the officers of the Royal Navy at liberty.”
“He says it would, for it would be the end of us all here. The sailors would come and pretty well turn us out of house and home. No; he won’t let you go.”
“How long is he going to keep me here?”
“Don’t know. Long as he likes.”
That last sentence seemed to drive the prisoner into a fit of anger, which lasted till the boy’s next coming.
The prisoner had been listening anxiously for the sound which betokened the visit of his young gaoler, and he was longing to have speech with him; but, telling himself that the boy was an enemy, he punished himself, as soon as the lanthorn came swaying through the darkness, by throwing himself down and turning away his head.
Ram came up and held the lanthorn over him.
“Morning. How are you?”
Archy made no reply.
“’Sleep?”
Still no answer.
“You aren’t asleep. Come, look up. I’ve brought you four plum puffs, and a cream-cheese mother made.”
“Hang your plum duffs and cream-cheeses!” cried Archy, starting up in a rage.
“Didn’t say plum duff; said plum puffs.”
“Take ’em away then. Bread and water’s the proper thing for prisoners.”
“Oh, I say, you wouldn’t get fat on that.”
“Will you let me out?”
“No.”
“Then I warn you fairly. One of these days, or nights, or whatever they are, I’ll lie wait for you, and break your head with a stone, and then get away.”
Ram laughed.
“What?” cried the prisoner fiercely.
“I was only larfin’.”
“What at?”
“You. Think I don’t know better than that? You wouldn’t be such a coward.”
“Oh, wouldn’t I?”
“Not you,” said Ram, sitting down quietly, and making the lid of his basket squeak. “You know I can’t help it.”
“Yes, you can. You could let me out.”
“Father would kill me if I did. Why, if I let you out, you’d come with a lot o’ men, and there’d be a big fight, and some of our chaps wounded and some killed, and if we didn’t whop you, our place would be all smashed up, and father and all of ’em in prison.”
“And serve ’em right!”
“Ah, but we don’t think so. That’s what you’d do, isn’t it?”
“Of course it is.”
“Well, then, I can’t let you go. ’Sides, if I said I would, there’s always Jemmy Dadd, or big Tom Dunley, or father waiting outside, and they’d be sure to nab you.”
“But you might come by night and get me out.”
“No,” said the boy sturdily, “I couldn’t.”
“Then you’re a beast. Get out of my sight before I half kill you!”
“Have a puff.”
“Take them away, you thieving scoundrel!” cried Archy, who was half mad with disappointment. “You come here professing to be civil, and yet you won’t help me.”
“Can’t.”
“You can, sir.”
“And you wouldn’t like me if I did.”
“Yes, I should, and I never could be grateful enough.”
“No, you wouldn’t. You’d know I was a sneak and a traitor, as you call it, to father and all our chaps, and you’d never like me.”
“Like you! I tell you I should consider you my best friend.”
“Not you. I know better than that. Have a puff.”
“Will you take your miserable stuff away?”
“Have some cream-cheese and new bread.”
Archy made a blow at him, but Ram only drew back slightly.
“Don’t be a coward,” he said. “You’re an officer and a gentleman, you told me one day, and you keep on trying to coax me into doing what you know would be making me a regular sneak. What should I say when you were gone?”
“Nothing,” cried the prisoner. “Escape with me. Come on board, and the lieutenant will listen to what I say, and take you, and we’ll make you a regular man-o’-war’s-man.”
“And set me to fight agen my father, and all my old mates?”
“No; you should not do that.”
“And you’d call me a miserable sneak.”
“I shouldn’t.”
“Then you’d think I was, and I should know it, so it would be all the same.”
“Then you will not help me?”
“Can’t.”
“You will not, you mean,” said Archy bitterly. “You’d sooner keep me here to rot in the darkness.”
“No, I wouldn’t, and I’d let you out if I could,” cried Ram, with animation. “I like you, that I do, because you’re such a brave chap, and not afraid of any of us. S’pose I was a prisoner in your boat, would you let me out?”
“That’s a different thing,” said Archy proudly. “I am a king’s officer, and you are only a smuggler’s boy.”
“I can’t help that,” said Ram warmly. “You wouldn’t let me go because you couldn’t, and I won’t let you go because I can’t.”
“Then get out of this place, and let me be.”
“Shan’t. It’s horrid dull and dark here, and lonesome. I shouldn’t like it, and that’s why I get mother to give me all sorts o’ good things to bring for you, and save ’em up. Father would make a row if he knew. I do like you.”
“Get out!”
“Ah, you may say that, but I’d do anything for you now.”
“Then let me go.”
“’Cept that.”
“Knock me on the head, then, and put me out of my misery.”
“And ’cept that too. I say, don’t be snarky with me. You must stop here as long as father likes, but why shouldn’t you and me be friends? I’ve brought you a Jew’s harp to learn to play when you’re alone.”
Archy uttered an ejaculation full of contempt, and snatched the proffered toy and hurled it as far as he could.
“It was a sixpenny one, and I walked all the way to Dunmouth and back to get it for you—twenty miles. It aren’t much of a thing for an orficer and a gentleman, though, I know. But, I say, look here, would you like to learn to play the fiddle?”
“Will you take your chattering tongue somewhere else?”
“’Cause,” continued Ram, without heeding the midshipman’s petulant words, “I could borrow big Tom Dunley’s old fiddle. He’d lend it to me, and I’d smuggle it here.”
“Smuggle, of course,” sneered Archy.
“In its green baize bag. I could teach you how to play one toon.”
Archy remained silent, as he sat on a stone, listening contemptuously to the lad’s words.
“I thought I could often come here, and sit and talk to you, and bring a light, and I brought these.”
He opened the door of the horn lanthorn, and produced from his pocket a very dirty old pack of cards, at which Archy stared with profound disgust.
“You and me could play a game sometimes, and then you wouldn’t feel half so dull. I say, have a puff now!”
There was no reply.
“Shall I bring you some apples?”
Archy threw himself down, and lay on his side, with his head resting upon his hand, gazing into the darkness.
“We’ve got lots o’ fox-whelps as we make cider of, and some red-cheeks which are ever so much better. I’ll bring you some.”
“Don’t,” replied Archy coldly. “Bring me my liberty. I don’t want anything else.”
“Won’t you have the Jew’s harp, if I go and find it?”
“No.”
“Nor yet the fiddle, if I borrow it?”
“No.”
“I say, don’t be so snarky with me. I can’t help it. I was obliged to do what I did, same as you’d have been if it had been t’other way on. Look here; let you and me be friends, and I could come often and sit with you. I’ll stay now if you like. Let’s have a game at cards.”
Archy made no reply, and Ram sighed.
“I’m very sorry,” he said sadly; “and I’d leave you the lanthorn if you like to ask me.”
“I’m not going to ask favours of such a set of thieves and scoundrels,” cried the midshipman passionately; “and once more I warn you that, if you come pestering me with your proposals, I shall knock you down with a stone, and then escape.”
“Not you,” replied Ram, with a quiet laugh.
“Not escape?”
“I meant couldn’t knock me down with a stone.”
“And pray why?”
“’Cause I tell you agen you couldn’t be such a coward. I’m going now.”
No notice was taken of the remark.
“Like another blanket?”
No answer.
“I’m going to leave the basket and the puffs and cheese. Anything else I can get you?”
Archy was moved by the lad’s friendly advances, but he felt as if he would rather die than show it, and he turned impatiently away from the light shed by the lanthorn.
“I’ll bring you some apples next time I come, and p’r’aps then you’ll have a game at cards.”
There was no reply, so Ram slowly shut the door of the lanthorn, turning the bright light to a soft yellowish glow, and rising to his knees.
“Do let me stop and have a game.”
“Let me stop and talk to you, then.”
There was no reply to either proposal, and just then there came a hoarse—
“Ram ahoy!”
“A-hoy!” cried the lad. “I must go now. That’s Jemmy Dadd shouting for me.”
Archy made no reply, and the boy rose, set down the basket beside where he had been kneeling, and stood gazing down at the prisoner.
“Like some ’bacco to chew?” he said. Then, as there was no answer, he went slowly away, with the prisoner watching the dull glow of the lanthorn till it disappeared behind the great pillars, there was a faint suggestion of light farther on, then darkness again, the dull echoing bang of the heavy trap-door and rattle of the thin slabs of stone which seemed to be thrown over it to act as a cover or screen, and then once again the silence and utter darkness which sat upon the prisoner like lead.
He uttered a low groan.
“Am I never to see the bright sun and the sparkling sea again?” he said sadly. “I never used to think they were half so beautiful as they are, till I was shut up in this horrible hole. Oh, if I could only get away!”
He started up now, and began to walk up and down over a space clear of loose stones, which he seemed to know now by instinct, but he stopped short directly.
“If that young ruffian saw me, he’d say I was like a wild beast in a cage. He’d call me a monkey again, as he did before. Oh, I wish I had him here!”
The intention was for the administration of punishment, but just then Archy kicked against the basket, and that completely changed the current of his thoughts.
“The beggar wants to be civil,” he said. “He is civil. It was kind of him to bring the things to amuse me, and better food. Wants to be friends! But who’s going to be friends with a scoundrel like that? I don’t want his rubbish—only to be able to keep strong and well, so as to escape first chance.”
“Likes me, does he?” muttered the midshipman, after a pause. “I should think he does. Such impudence! Friends indeed! Oh, it’s insufferable!”
Archy’s words were very bitter, but, somehow, all the time he kept thinking about their adventure, and the lad’s bravery, and then about his having saved him.
“I suppose he liked that,” said Archy, after a time, talking aloud, for it was pleasant to hear a voice in the solemn darkness, even if it was only his own.
He grew a little more softened in his feelings, and, after resisting the temptation for three hours, and vowing that he would keep to bread and water and starve himself before he would let them think he received their gifts, he found himself thinking more and more of the friendly feeling of the boy and his show of gratitude. Then he recalled all that had passed about the proposal to escape—to set him at liberty—to be his companion; and he was obliged to own that Ram had behaved very well.
“For him,” he said contemptuously, and then such a peculiarly strong suggestion of its being dinner-time reminded him that he ought to partake of food, that he opened the basket, and the temptation was resisted no longer.
Pride is all very well in places, but there is a strength in cold roast chicken, plum puffs, and cream-cheese, that will, or did in this case, sweep everything before it; and, after making a very hearty meal, the midshipman almost wished that he had Ram there to talk to as a humble companion in that weary solitude.
“He’s a miserable, contemptible beggar,” said Archy at last, “but I need not have been quite so rough with him as I was.”