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.