As the prisoner sat listening to the bang of the trap-door and the
rattling of the bolts, he could hardly contain himself. But knowing the
danger of the boy coming back and finding him gone, he forced himself to
stay where he was; and to pass away the time he opened the basket Ram
had now left in place of the other, and forced himself to eat.
But he could hardly swallow the food, which seemed tasteless in the
extreme, and he was about to give up and hasten back to his work when
his heart leaped, for there was the distant sound of the bolts being
drawn, and a minute or two later the soft yellow light came slowly
towards him and stopped.
"Just remembered," said its bearer. "Got half way home first, though.
Mother said I was to be sure and take back that basket. Put the stuff
out on the sail. Hullo, what you been doing to your hands?"
Archy started guiltily, and looked at them in the light to see that they
were covered with blood, from injuries that he had made unconsciously in
toiling with his knife against the stones.
"Tumbled down?" continued Ram without waiting for an answer. "Well,
'tis dark 'mong these stones. I used to trip over them, but I could go
anywhere now in the dark. Seem to feel like when they are near. Never
mind, tear up yer hankychy and wrap round. I'll bring you one o' mine
next time I come. There we are. Haven't forgot the basket this time.
I say?"
"Well?"
The lad was ten yards away now, holding the lanthorn above his head.
"You lost a chance."
"What do you mean?"
"Jemmy Dadd isn't up by the door. You might have given me a topper with
a stone, and run away; too late now."
He ran off laughing, and holding the lanthorn down low to make sure of
his way.
But Archy did not start up in pursuit. He saw a better way out now, and
waiting till he felt convinced that the boy must be well on his way
home, he jumped up, felt his way to the crevice, and was soon after hard
at work picking the mortar from between the stones.
Now and then, as he grew faint and weary, it seemed to him that he had
made no progress, but the little heap of mortar told different tales,
and once more taking heart he toiled away.
It seemed a very easy thing to do, to loosen one stone in a rugged wall,
draw it out, and then remove the other, but in practice it appeared
almost impossible, and again going back into the quarry to partake of
the food that was absolutely necessary, Archy returned to his task, and
after working away again for about half an hour he fell fast asleep.
How long he slept he did not know, but he started awake again to find
that it was quite dark, and he kept on like one in a dream.
The stone seemed as fast as ever, and his progress was getting very slow
now, for he had cleared away the mortar as fast as he could reach in;
but at last, seizing the stone and getting his fingers well in the
joint, he gave it a vigorous shove, and then uttered a shout of triumph,
for to his delight there came a sharp crack, and after giving a vigorous
shove, the stone, which was about twenty inches long, was drawn out, and
became the instrument for dislodging its fellows.
This was comparatively easy now, and in the course of the next two days
the prisoner had loosened and drawn out stones till he had made a way
through a rough piece of wall six feet thick, and had enlarged the hole
so that there was room to creep into the opening he had made and look
out.
Here came disappointment the first. The wall he had worked through did
not face out to sea, but was one side of a chasm, and he gazed at the
opposite side.
Soon after he learned that this had not been the place where the stones
were carried out for landing in boats, but the hole through which all
the refuse was discharged, to fall in a crumbling heap a tremendous
distance below, to be washed away by the waves which curved over and
over against the foot and rolled up into the chasm.
Still he worked on, enlarging the hole and sending the broken pieces and
mortar, rattling down the face of the cliff into the sea, till there was
nothing to hinder his crawling out at any time, and either getting to
the top of the cliff or down below to the shore.
He decided for the former as the more easy and the less likely to
suggest peril, and he spent the next few hours after cleansing himself
as much as possible, so as not to excite the attention of his young
gaoler, and in his efforts to do this he made use of a piece of
sailcloth, and an end of a coil of rope which lay with some sea-going
tackle hard by where he slept.
The day had come at last when the way was open, and he had but to creep
out into the fresh bright sunshine and run for his liberty.
He could hardly refrain from doing so at once, but his long and arduous
labour, which had taken the skin from his fingers and left his whole
hands so tender that he hardly dared to touch anything, had taught him
some wisdom, especially not to throw away the opportunity for which he
had worked so hard.
And now he sat there in the darkness, wafting, so exultant that his seat
might have been a throne, instead of a worn-out sail stretched over a
mass of stone. He hugged the knees upon which his chin rested, and
gazed straight before him into the blackness, watching for the first
glow of Ram's lanthorn, and seeing as he watched the glorious sky, the
blue sea all a-ripple; the shimmer and play of a passing shoal of fish;
gulls floating without effort, now high up, now low down, their breasts
of purest white, their backs of delicate grey, and their wondering eyes
gazing at the rough-looking fisher-lad who crept out of a hole in the
face of the cliff, made his way from shelf to shelf, ever up and up till
he was on the grass at the top, where he lay down to wait till night for
fear of being seen and dragged back.
The black darkness of the great cavern quarry was all alight now with
the pictures his mind painted, and, in his delight and satisfaction, he
laughed aloud as he thought of Ram's disappointment on coming one day
and finding his prisoner flown.
It was hard work to keep from starting at once, but the midshipman felt
that if he did, his escape would be discovered at any moment, and if it
were, it was only a question of time before he would have the whole
smuggling gang after him, and he would be hunted down to a lot ten times
more bitter from the fact of his having failure to contemplate, and form
his mental food.
The rattle at last. The door dragged up, and Ram was not alone, for his
voice could be heard in conversation with Jemmy Dadd.
The boy was in capital spirits, and he was whistling merrily, his shrill
notes echoing from the flat roof as he came on swinging his lanthorn in
one hand, the basket in the other.
"Sleep?" he said, as he saw Archy's attitude. "There you are," he
continued. "I know you weren't asleep, and if you don't like to talk it
aren't my fault. Want anything else?"
No reply; Archy dare not speak.
"Oh, very well," he said, "you can do as you like. Where's t'other
basket?"
A shiver ran through the prisoner as he recollected that which he had
forgotten in his excitement: the basket which he had taken with some of
the food therein, ready for his use as he worked, was standing by the
opening at the top of the steps, and he cast an anxious glance sidewise
in the direction of the passage, in dread lest the boy should detect the
light shining down.
He need not have been alarmed, for there was not a ray visible, and even
if there had been, the light cast by the opened lanthorn would have
hidden it; but he sat there trembling all the same, and with a curious
sensation of suffocation rising in his throat, as he softly altered his
position and loosened his hands, ready to make a spring at his enemy if
it should become necessary.
"Well, I do call that grumpy. Keeps on bringing you nuts, and you're so
snarky that you won't so much as give one back the shells. Now, then,
where's that basket?"
Archy felt that he must speak, or else the boy would go in search of it.
"I haven't done with it."
"But I want it to take back."
"It has some of the dinner in it."
"Well, then, let's empty it out."
"No," said Archy, sitting up angrily; "you can't have it now."
"Oh," said Ram, "that's it, is it? Suppose I say I will have it?"
"If you don't take yourself off," cried Archy, "I'll break your head
with one of these pieces of stone."
"Two can play at that game."
"Be off."
"I shan't. I want our basket. Mother said I was to bring it back."
"Tell her you haven't got it."
"Now, look here," cried Ram, "if you don't give me that basket back, I
won't bring you what I was going to bring to-morrow. Where is it?"
"Where I put it. You contemptible young smuggling thief! How dare you
come worrying a gentleman about a dirty old basket!"
"Wasn't dirty, for mother scrubbed it out before she'd send it to you.
Where is it?"
Desperate now in his fix, and feeling that his only resource to keep Ram
from searching for the basket with his lanthorn was to keep up this show
of anger, Archy made a snatch at a long splinter of stone, and started
up menacingly.
"Oh, that's it, is it?" cried Ram, who stood upon his guard, but did not
appear in the least bit alarmed. "Fed you too well, have I? Had too
many oats, and you're beginning to kick up your heels and squeak and
snort. Never mind, I'll soon make you civil again. Going to give me
that basket?"
"No."
"Then you shan't have this. There!" cried Ram, and snatching up the one
he had brought, he walked straight away, swinging his lanthorn after he
had shut it with a snap.
"Going to give it to me?" he cried, as he stopped about half way to the
trap-door.
"No."
"You'll want all this, and I've got some good tack inside."
"Be off, fellow, and don't bother me."
"Yah! Who want's to?" cried Ram; and he went off whistling merrily till
he was at the opening, when he shouted back,--
"No oats to-day, pony. Good-bye."
Archy leaped up and stood listening with his heart beating fast, and his
head bent in the direction taken by the boy.
"How unfortunate!" he said. "But I could not help it. Will he come
back?"
He listened and listened and hesitated, but there was no sound, and
still he hesitated, till quite a couple of hours must have passed, when
he uttered a loud exultant cry, determined now to make one bold dash for
liberty, and made straight through the darkness for the open way.