"COWARD!"
"Sandy!"
"_Sandy!_"
"SANDY!"
"Well, what is it?"
Sandy MacTavish sat up on the bed in the tower room to find Jack
bending over him.
It was pitchy dark. So soundly had the exhausted lads slept that
they had taken no account of the hours.
"Hoot mon!" exclaimed the Scotch lad, wide-awake in an instant, "it's
nicht."
"Yes, it is night," rejoined Jack; "we must have slept for hours and
hours."
"I hope that mon didnae call us to take that steamer."
"Sandy, I don't believe there is any steamer."
"What!"
"I mean what I say. This looks to me like a trap."
"What, another one?"
"Hush! Listen to me. Just before I dropped off to sleep, I've a
kind of a shadowy recollection of hearing that door being locked."
"And you didna investigate?"
"I'm ashamed to say I didn't. Not that it would have done any good,
anyhow. I was too sleepy, I guess. But when I woke up, just now, I
went over to the door, and----"
"It is locked."
"You're right. And it's stout and firm, too."
"Let's shout. It may be an accident."
"Not much chance of that. I've worse news for you, Sandy. Something
that shows that it was by no accident that door became locked."
"How's that?"
Sandy sat on the edge of the bed, peering into the darkness where
Jack's form was dimly visible.
"Walstein and Dampier are in this place!"
"Here? In this tower?" gasped Sandy incredulously.
"Yes, I heard them whispering at the door when I woke up. I
recognized their voices. That rascal who took us in here has robbed
me, too."
"He has, eh, the gloomeroon!"
"Yes, he took every penny out of my pocket while we were sleeping."
"How did you discover this?"
"I overheard something while they were whispering at the door that
made me suspicious. I heard Walstein tell the man that he had got
his share of whatever ransom they made out of us, when he picked my
pockets."
"And then you looked in them?"
"Of course."
"And they were empty?"
"Sandy, you almost make me laugh. Of course they were."
"A-well, I dinna see what good money would do us now," quoth Sandy
philosophically. "So they are going to hold us for ransom?"
"So I judged. Moreover, I learned from what I heard that we are on
an island. Guess what one?"
"I dinna ken; De'il's Island, perhaps."
"On Castle Rock Island."
"Ho! ho! ho!" chuckled Sandy, who as ever refused to be downcast,
"prisoners on my dad's ain property. That's a good joke."
"I fail to see where the joke comes in, just at present," rejoined
Jack. "These are desperate men. They won't stop at anything.
Sandy, we've got to find some way to get out of this mess."
"Well, we canna' go by the door."
"No; and even if it were open, those two dogs are guarding it. I
heard that man who brought us here tell them to 'watch.'"
"Aye! They're a vera nice pair o' dogs, that. That is, they'd be
nice if they had nickel steel muzzles on."
"Say, I wish you'd cut out your joking for a while, Sandy. This is a
serious matter. We don't wish our friends to have to pay big ransoms
for us. I'd hate to think of those rascals winning out after all,
and getting rich on their scoundrelly ways, too."
"So would I," agreed Sandy, suddenly serious. "I tell you what,
Jack, did you notice that spiral stairway outside the tower?"
"Yes, I noticed it when we came in. Why?"
"Weel, I'm thinking that yon bit window must look out on that same
stairway."
"Suppose it does? How are we to reach the window?"
"Pile up some of the furniture on the bed. I guess we could easily
reach it that way. It's no vera big, but I'm thinking we could
manage to squeeze through, if we reached it."
"By George, Sandy, it's worth trying, anyhow. Let's set about it at
once. But be careful not to make any noise moving the furniture.
They might guess what we are at."
"That's so. We must be careful."
Very cautiously the two lads dragged the bed to a position below the
small window. Then they piled the rickety bureau on that, and on the
top of the last-named bit of furniture they stood a chair.
Sandy was the first to clamber up. It was slow work, for the stack
of furniture was rickety, and threatened to collapse with a crash at
any instant.
But at last he gained the summit and wriggled his active body half
through the window. It was too dark outside to see much, and the lad
determined on a characteristically bold step. Squirming through the
small casement, he let himself drop, holding by his hands to the
window-ledge, while he felt about beneath him with his feet.
To his intense joy, he could feel his toe-tips encounter a projection
from the wall of the tower, which he judged must be the outside
stairway they had noticed.
"Come on!" he called softly to Jack, and then he gently dropped. As
he had suspected, he found himself standing on the stairway, which
seemed to be staunch and firm.
Sandy tested it by rocking back and forth with his face to the rough
wall of the tower. There was no tremor from the stones beneath him.
"Noo, if all goes well, we'll be free again," he muttered to himself,
as he awaited Jack's coming.
Presently, in spite of the darkness, he saw the other lad's head
projected through the window above him.
"Is it all right?" asked Jack in a low whisper.
"As fine as silk," came back the rejoinder. "Just climb through and
then drop down beside me. It's a bonnie staircase."
"Funny they haven't got it guarded," commented Jack, as he obeyed
Sandy's instructions, and in another instant was by his chum's side.
"It does seem queer. But maybe they never figured on our escaping by
this way."
"Maybe that's it," agreed Jack, little guessing the real reason that
no sentry was posted on the stone stairway.
"Now we'd better hug the wall going down," observed Sandy. "We don't
know how far out the steps extend, and if we step off it would be
awkward."
"Awkward! We might be killed!" exclaimed Jack.
"That's so, too," agreed Sandy in his usual matter-of-fact tones.
He seemed quite calm and cool, while Jack's heart was beating wildly
and his pulses throbbing painfully.
"Now then, easy does it!" observed Sandy, and he began to descend the
stone stairway with due caution.
Jack followed, keeping as close to the walls as he could. He could
not help feeling conscious of the black void that yawned on the outer
end of the projecting steps.
"Hoots! There's going to be a storm before long!" exclaimed Sandy
suddenly, as a vivid flash of lightning ripped the sky.
It was the same that Tom was observing at that instant as he embarked
on his perilous mission.
The flash, short as it had been, had sufficed to show Jack the true
peril of their path. The stairs were not more than eighteen inches
wide. At one time there may have been a balustrade on the outer
edge. But, if this had ever been the case, it had vanished now.
Jack felt an odd sinking at the pit of his stomach, as he saw the
ground beneath them illumined for that brief molecule of time. It
looked fearfully far off. He could not help picturing in his
imagination the fatal results of a misstep.
But Sandy had none of these qualms of fear. He went right ahead,
exercising due caution, it is true. But his mind was more busy with
the real peril of discovery than with the thought that a false step
might plunge its maker down to death.
He was proceeding thus, step by step, when he halted abruptly. His
outstretched foot had encountered vacancy.
"Hoots! What's this?" thought Sandy.
At that instant came another flash. What it revealed made even the
stout-hearted Scotch lad quiver and sicken for an instant.
No steps lay beyond his foot.
Instead, there was a dark void where several of the stones had fallen
out. One step more, and Sandy would have been dashed to the earth,
he did not know how many feet below. Perspiration broke out in tiny
pin-points all over him.
What were they going to do?
Suddenly came another flash. It showed the lad that the gap was not
in reality more than a few feet wide. On the farther side the steps
went on again, encircling the tower.
Sandy made up his mind instantly as to their course of action. They
must jump. On the ground it would have been nothing to an active lad
of almost any age. But the idea of leaping that gulf high up on the
side of the old lighthouse was a repellent one.
Then, too, there was the chance that the stones beyond might not be
firmly fixed in place. In that case, the force of any one alighting
on them might send them crashing down through space, bearing the
jumper with them.
"A-weel, the longer I think about it, the worse it gets," thought
Sandy, "I must jump and have it over with."
Jack was pressing close behind him now.
"What's the matter, Sandy?" he asked. "Why don't you go on?"
"Jack, we've got a bit of jumping to do," responded Sandy bravely.
He knew that Jack's nature was rather imaginative and high-strung,
and he dreaded the task of persuading the lad to jump. Yet it must
be done. They could not turn back now. It was either discovery or
else progression.
"You see, Jack," he explained gently, "one or two steps are missing
right here. But there's some bonnie ones on the other side. Now,
all we've got to do is to jump across, do you understand?"
As he spoke, the Scotch lad could feel Jack Dacre quiver as he
pressed against him.
Don't think for a minute that the lad was a coward. He had proven
his mettle on many a hard-fought diamond and gridiron. But his
imagination was lively. Already Jack was picturing the consequences
if the jump was miscalculated. Sandy saw that it would only increase
the other's fears if they lingered.
By the light of the flash that had revealed his peril to him, the lad
had calculated the jump. And now, with a murmured prayer on his
lips, he made it.
Out into space, he flew, and the next instant landed safe and sound
across the gulf. Nerve and pluck will conquer many such gulfs and
voids.
[Illustration: Out into space he flew, and the next instant landed
safe and sound across the gulf.]
But with Jack, it was different. Try as he would, he could not nerve
himself for the leap into blackness. He felt he would almost rather
be recaptured than face the jump.
"Come on!" cried Sandy encouragingly out of the darkness, "mon, it's
too easy."
"I can't, Sandy! I can't!" came back Jack Dacre's voice.
Sandy noted that it held a quiver of real fear, and he didn't much
blame his chum for it.
But Jack must be gotten across that chasm somehow. How was it to be
done? Sandy tried to laugh off the perils.
"It isn't that," quavered Jack. "I'm not really afraid of it. I
don't know what the feeling is. But Sandy, I can almost see myself
lying at the foot of the tower with all my bones broken."
"Rubbish," laughed Sandy. "I'm not near as good at the broad jump as
you, and yet I made it all right."
"I know. But--but--you go on, Sandy. Get help, if you can. I'm
going back. I can't do it. I can't!"
Then Sandy had an inspiration.
"Coward!" he hissed, putting all the contempt he could into the
words. "Coward!"
It was then that Jack Dacre found himself. Burning with anger and
humiliation, he leaped forward into the night, to be caught by Sandy
at the other side of the gulf.
"Good for you!" exclaimed Sandy, as the comrades clasped hands. "I
knew you'd do it."
"Not if it hadn't been for you, Sandy," breathed Jack. "You saved me
from recapture, and--and--something else."