Sam Hardock looked at the boy with a mingling of horror and pity on his
countenance.
"What yer talking about?" he cried. "Can't yer understand as it means
trouble? Someone's deloodering of yer away so as you may be drownded,
too."
But Joe Jollivet hardly heard him in his excitement. He was convinced
that he had heard Gwyn calling for aid, and he dashed off in search of
his comrade.
He felt that it was useless, but he stepped back to the mouth of the
ancient mine, and shouted down it once, but without response, and then
started to climb out of the gully in which he stood, mounting
laboriously over the rugged granite masses which lay about, tangling and
scratching himself among the brambles, and at last standing high up on
the slope to gaze round and shout.
"What's the good o' that?" cried Hardock, who was following him. "Come
back."
For answer Joe gazed round about him, wondering whether by any
possibility there was another opening into the mine hidden by bramble
and heath. He had been all over the place with Gwyn scores of times,
and the walled-in mouth was familiar enough; and from the cliff edge to
the mighty blocks piled up here and there he and Gwyn had climbed and
crawled, hunting adders and lizards among the heath, chased rabbits to
their holes in the few sandy patches, and foraged for sea-birds' eggs on
the granite ledges and, by the help of a rope, over on the face of the
cliffs. But never once had they come upon any opening save the one down
into the old mine.
"But there must be--there must be," muttered Joe, with a feeling of
relief, "and I've got to find it. It's blocked up with stones, and the
blackberries have grown all over it. There!--All right. Ahoy!
Coming."
For the faint halloa came now very distinctly.
"Are you comin' back?" shouted Hardock. "Don't stand hollering there in
that mad way."
"He's here--he's here--somewhere," shouted back Joe, excitedly, and he
waved to his companion to come on.
"Yah! stuff!" growled Hardock; but he followed up the side of the gully,
while Joe went on away from the sea to where a wall of rock rose up some
twenty feet and ran onward for seventy or eighty.
Joe came back hurriedly after a few moments and met Hardock.
"Well, where is he?" said the latter.
"I don't know," panted the boy; "somewhere underneath. I keep hearing
him."
"You keep hearing o' them," said the man, with a look full of the
superstition to which he was a victim.
"Ahoy!" came faintly from behind them.
"Now, then," cried Joe, excitedly; "he's up there."
He turned and ran up toward the wall of rock once more, followed more
deliberately by Hardock, who hung the coil of rope on his shoulder.
"Well, where is he?" said the man, as he reached the spot where Joe was
hunting about among the great pieces of stone.
"I don't know, but there must be another opening here." Hardock shook
his head mysteriously.
"But you heard him shout."
"I heerd a voice," said the man; and as he spoke there came a querulous
chorus from the gulls that were floating in the air close to the edge of
the cliff.
"No, no, it was not a gull," cried Joe.
"I did not say it weer," replied Hardock. "You can think what you like,
but I only says, `Wheer is he?'"
"He must be somewhere here," cried Joe; and he climbed about in all
directions for some time, and only gave up when he felt how impossible
it was that his comrade could be anywhere near.
"Theer, come on down, my lad," said Hardock at last.
"It's impossible for anyone to be here. There aren't a hole big enough
to hide a rabbit, let alone a boy."
They descended slowly toward the lower part of the slope, near the cliff
edge. Here Joe stopped short, for faintly, but perfectly distinct, came
the words, "Joe, ahoy!" and certainly from behind him.
"There, I knew he was up there!" cried the lad, excitedly; "come back.
I was sure of it."
He scrambled back as fast as he could, and Hardock followed him,
frowning, and stood looking on, while his companion searched once more
in every possible direction without avail.
"Ahoy, Gwyn. Y-doll!" he shouted through his hands. "Where are you?"
There was no reply, and after more searching and shouting, and with the
man's superstitious notions beginning to affect him, Joe stopped and
gazed blankly in his face.
"Well, d'yer begin to believe me now, my lad?" whispered Hardock.
"I can't help--" began the lad; and then he burst out with an emphatic.
"No, it's all nonsense! Gwyn must be here. Ahoy, Ydoll! Where are
you?"
His voice died away, and in obedience to an order from the man, Joe
began to descend the rugged slope again towards the green strip, which
ran along near the cliff edge.
"It's of no use fighting again' it, my lad," said Hardock, solemnly;
"they're a-mocking of you, and you might go on hunting all day long and
couldn't find nought. Let's go; we aren't safe here."
"I won't go," cried the boy, "and I won't believe what you think is
possible. Gwyn's somewhere about here. Now, think. Where is there
that we haven't searched?"
"Nowheres," whispered Hardock, and in spite of the bright sunshine
around them he kept on nervously glancing here and there.
"Why, if you go on like that in the middle of the day, Sam," cried the
boy, angrily, "what would you do if it was dark?"
"Dark! You don't know a man in Ydoll Cove as would come up here after
dark, my lad. It would be more than his life was worth, he'd tell you.
Why, there's not only them in the old mine, but the cliffs swarm with
them things as goes raging about whenever there's a storm. I never used
to believe in them, but I do now."
"And I don't," said Joe, "and you won't frighten me. It's poor old Gwyn
we heard shouting, and there must be an opening somewhere down into the
mine."
"Wheer is it, then?" whispered the man. "You've been all over here
times enough, and so have I, but I never found no hole 'cept the one big
one down."
"No, I never saw one, but there must be. There!" For a faint hail came
again from the wall of rock behind them.
"Gwyn, ahoy!" cried Joe as loudly as he could.
"Ahoy!" came back steadily.
"Why, it's an echo," cried Joe, excitedly. "Ahoy! Ahoy!"
"Oy--oy!" came back from the wall, and directly after, much more
faintly--"Oy--help!"
"Oh, what fools--what idiots!" cried Joe, excitedly; and certain now of
where his comrade was, he went quickly down the slope to the cliff edge
and looked over down towards where the sea eddied among the fallen rocks
three hundred feet below, and shouted,--"Gwyn!--Gwyn!"
His voice seemed lost there; but as he listened there came faintly a
reply in the one appealing cry--"help!"
But it was away to his right, where the rocks rose up rugged and broken.
Where he stood the grass ran right to the edge, but there the granite
looked as if it had been built up with large blocks into a mighty
overhanging bastion, which rose up fully fifty feet higher; and it was
evident that Gwyn had worked his way somewhere out to the cliff face far
below this mass.
"Why there must be an adit," cried Hardock, in a tone full of wonder.
"I never knowed of that."
[Note; an adit is a horizontal shaft driven in from the cliff.]
"Yes, and he's safe--he's safe?" cried Joe; and his manliness all
departed in his wild excitement, for he burst into a fit of hysterical
sobbing. He mastered his emotion though, directly, and shouted,--
"Hold on! Coming," in the hope of being heard.
He was heard, for, faintly heard from below to their right, came the
former appealing word--
"Help!"
"All right," he yelled. "Now, Sam, can I get down there?"
"You'll get to the bottom afore you know it," replied the man. "No."
"Then you must lower me with the rope."
"What, and one o' my knots!" said the man, maliciously.
"Oh, don't talk," cried Joe, "but come on. We must get along to where
it's right over him, and then I'll go down. But did you ever see a hole
along here?"
"Nay--never!"
"Come on."
Joe led the way inland, and then had to clamber over block after block
of tumbled together granite for some fifty yards, when he turned to
begin mounting to the hog-back-like ridge which ran out to the great
bastion which overhung the sea.
It was an awkward climb--not dangerous, but difficult. Joe's heart was
in his work though; and, free now from superstitious dread, Hardock
toiled after him, keeping up so that he was at his shoulder when the boy
lay down on his chest and looked over the edge.
For a few moments he could see nothing but ledge and jutting block,
whitened by the sea-birds which here brought up their young in peace,
for even the reckless boys had looked upon it as too hazardous to
descend. The sea far below was just creaming among the rocks which
peered above the water, and ran out in a reef causing a dangerous race;
but though Joe searched the whole cliff face below him for nearly a
minute he could see nothing, and at last he shouted with all his might
and had a lesson in the feebleness of the human voice in that vast
expanse.
"Ahoy!"
"Ahoy!" came up from below as faintly as the cry which evoked it.
"I can't see him," said Hardock, shading his eyes as he peered down.
"No; he must be under one of the blocks that jut out."
"Ay and all hings over, or he'd ha' climbed up. Now, my lad, what's to
be done? Will you go down?"
"Yes, of course; but knot me fast this time, Sam."
"Ay, my lad, I will. You trust me."
"I will, Sam," said the boy, calmly. Then he strained outwards, put
both hands, trumpet fashion, to his lips, and shouted,--
"Ahoy! Coming down.--Hardock, look! I can see him."
"Eh? Where? I can't see nought."
"There, nearly straight under us, about half-way down--look!"
"No; I can't see him. Can you?"
"Yes; only his hand. It's like a speck. He's waving it to us. There,
I can just see a bit of his arm, too."
"I got it now. Yes, I can see it. He must be at the mouth of an adit
where they threw out their waste stuff to be washed away by the sea."
"Ahoy! Rope!"
Those two words came up plainly now, and Joe answered through his closed
hands.
"All--right--coming down!--Now, Sam, quick. Make me fast, and lower
away."
"No! Rope!" came up from below.
"Says you aren't to go down," cried Hardock, excitedly. "And why should
yer? I'll drop the rope, and you can help me haul him up. He'll make
it fast enough, I know."
As he spoke the man rose up, threw the ring of rope on the rock by his
side, set the end free, made a knot in it, and gave it to Joe to hold
while, after a little examination to make sure that it would uncoil
easily, he raised the ring, stood back a couple of yards, swung the coil
to and fro horizontally on a level with his left shoulder and then
launched it seaward with a vigorous throw, making a snatch directly
after at the end close to where Joe held on with both hands.
Away went the rope with the rings gracefully uncoiling and straightening
out as the stout hemp writhed like some long thin serpent, opening out
more and more, till, far away below them, they saw it hang down, swaying
to and fro like a pendulum.
"Not long enough," cried Joe, sadly.
"Good two hundred foot, my lad; nigh upon five-and-thirty fathom; p'raps
he'll climb to it. Can you see the end?"
"No--no," said Joe; "it hangs over beyond that block that sticks out?"
"And it's below that he's a-lying, aren't it?"
"I don't know--I think so. It's of no use. I must slide down to him.
Ah, stop a minute, let's give it a swing to and fro. Perhaps he can't
see it. Hurrah! I've got a bite."
"Nay!" cried Hardock, excitedly.
"Yes, it's all right. Feel."
But there was no need, for at that moment there was a most unmistakable
tug.