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!"