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.