The cane-knives were speedily at work; the grass was long and abundant,
and as the two men were working for liberty--nay, probably for life
itself--they were not long in cutting a sufficient quantity for their
purpose. Walford was then lifted carefully out upon the ground, the
grass was thickly and evenly distributed over the inner side of the
hammock, and then the invalid was again deposited within it, and
securely lashed up, his head only being left free. This done, two
lanyards were securely attached to the extempore hammock, one at its
head, and the other at its foot.
"Well done; that's capital!" exclaimed George, as the last turn was
taken, making all secure. "Now slip the bight over your--ah! here come
the dogs, by all that's unfortunate. We must defend ourselves with the
cane-knives. I'll tackle the first one, you take the next, and--mind--
we have no time to waste; luckily there are only three of the brutes as
yet; we must kill them, and be up out of reach before the others or
their masters arrive. Keep steady, Tom, my lad, and strike so that one
blow shall be sufficient. Now then--come on, you devils!"
As George finished speaking, the dogs--three superb specimens of the
Cuban bloodhound--dashed up to within about ten feet of the fugitives,
and there stopped, not attacking them, as they had expected, but merely
baying loudly.
"This will not do," exclaimed George; "if we turn our backs upon them
for a single instant, they will seize us; and we cannot afford the time
to stand looking at them. I will take the dark one, you attack the
light fellow, and mind what you are about, for they are as strong and
active as tigers. _Now_!"
At the word both men sprang forward with uplifted cane-knives, and made
a slash at the dogs. The creatures tried to dodge the blows, and one of
them--the one attacked by Tom--succeeded. George, however, was more
fortunate; he made a feint, and as the dog sprang aside, he followed him
up, recovering his weapon smartly at the same time, and bringing it down
in another second on the creature's head with such strength and effect
that the skull was cloven open, and the poor brute, with a yell of
agony, rolled over dead. Tom, meanwhile, was battling ineffectually
with the dog he had attacked, and George turned just in time to see the
hound spring savagely at the lad's throat, and hurl him to the ground.
With a single bound Leicester reached Tom's side, and raising the
cane-knife above his head, and grasping the handle with both hands, he
brought it down with all his strength across the dog's neck, taking care
to avoid the thick leather collar which protected it. The blow clove
through skin and bone, dividing the spine and nearly severing the head
from the body; but even then it was difficult to free poor Tom from the
iron jaws which had seized him. With a vigorous wrench, however, this
was effected, and George then dragged the lad to his feet.
"Are you hurt?" panted Leicester.
"No," gasped Tom. "The beast only seized me by the collar of my jacket,
and--"
"Then come on at once," interrupted George; "the third dog has turned
tail, like a craven, luckily for us. Now slip the bight of the lanyard
over your neck, and follow me. Leave the cane-knives; they will only
encumber us, and perhaps throw us down the face of the precipice. Now,
look out, I'm going to start."
As George spoke, he approached the face of the precipice, and, taking
advantage of whatever projections he could find, began the task of
scaling it, Tom following behind, and Walford slung in his make-shift
hammock between the two.
They worked desperately, these two men, knowing how much depended upon
the next few minutes, and an onlooker would have been astounded at the
progress they made, encumbered as they were with the weight and bulk of
their helpless companion.
In one minute from the time of starting they had gained a height of
forty feet, and then the sudden trampling of horses' hoofs, and the loud
shouts of their pursuers told them that the latter had rounded the bend,
and that they were seen.
In a few seconds the sounds ceased at the foot of the cliff, and in
another instant the voice of the head overseer was heard shouting to
them--
"Hola there! Giorgio--you miscreant--come down, or I will fire!"
"Keep steady, Tom," gasped George. "Let them fire; the chances are ten
to one that they will miss us. Do you feel nervous, lad?"
"Not I," answered Tom; "never felt steadier in my life, cap'n. This
rope _is_ cutting into my shoulders awful bad, though."
"So it is into mine," returned George; "but we must grin and bear it
now, until we get to the top. And--whatever you do--look up, boy; if
you look down, you'll grow dizzy, and, likely enough, slip; then down we
must all inevitably go."
"Are you coming down, you rascals?" shouted the overseer.
"It don't look much like it, I reckon, senhor," chuckled Tom to himself,
hoisting himself over the edge of a good broad ledge of rock as he
spoke, a ledge some ten feet in width.
"Now!" exclaimed Leicester, as he helped the lad up, "we'll rest here a
minute or two, and recover our breath. They may blaze away at us as
long as they like now; we're as safe from their bullets as if they were
a dozen miles away."
The overseer and his companions, however, seemed to think differently,
for the fugitives had scarcely settled themselves comfortably, when a
regular fusillade was opened upon them; but, as George and Tom were
completely sheltered by the projecting ledge, none of the shot came near
them.
They were now about half-way up the cliff, and from this position an
excellent view presented itself for some distance up the ravine which
they had just left; but both George and Tom, now that they were sitting
quietly down, and had leisure to think about it, felt the sense of empty
space immediately before them, and of the sheer precipice which they
knew lay beyond that narrow ledge, to be exceedingly trying to the
nerves.
Presently the clatter of horses' hoofs came ringing upward to them from
the bottom of the ravine, and, peering cautiously over the edge of the
rock, George saw that the party of man-hunters, accompanied by four
bloodhounds, had started off at a gallop on their way back to the
entrance of the _cul-de-sac_. He at once guessed that their intention
was to ride round over the hills, and endeavour to pick up the trail
again at the top of the cliff.
The act of looking downward from so great an elevation, and the sight of
the sheer precipice, on the very edge of which he was hanging, with
absolutely nothing to prevent him from falling over and going whirling
headlong down to the bottom, produced in George a sudden attack of
vertigo. The whole landscape appeared to rock to and fro; the ledge
upon which he was standing seemed to sway suddenly forward over the
abyss and threaten to launch him into space; he felt himself wavering
upon the very brink, and an almost uncontrollable impulse seized him to
spring off and take that terrible downward flight. Another glance
downward, and the impulse became irresistible. He drew back a step,
braced himself for the terrible leap, flung his arms above his head,
and, uttering a piercing cry, was in the very act of launching himself
forward over the edge, when Tom, happening to glance at him, and to
detect his suicidal determination just in time, sprang up, and, with a
cry of amazement and horror, dragged him forcibly back against the wall
of rock behind.
"Why, cap'n!" exclaimed the lad, as soon as he had sufficiently
recovered from his astonishment to speak,--"why, cap'n, whatever's the
matter with yer? What was you goin' to do?"
For the moment poor George was too unnerved to speak. The instant that
he was dragged back from the ledge, the horrible fascination lost its
hold upon him; he suddenly realised in its fullest extent the frightful
peril from which he had been so providentially snatched, and, covering
his face with his hands, as the revulsion of feeling came upon him, he
shook and quivered like an aspen-leaf. A minute or two more and this
dreadful feeling also passed away, his calmness and self-possession
returned to him, and, placing himself upon his knees, there on that
narrow ledge of rock he humbly returned his hearty thanks to God for his
preservation, and prayed for help and deliverance for himself and his
companions in their present sore need. Then, turning to Tom, he said--
"Thank you, Tom; you have saved my life as surely as ever man's life has
been saved by a fellow-creature in this world. I was in the very act of
springing off the rock when you dragged me back, and, but for you, my
body would at this moment be lying mangled and lifeless a hundred feet
below. I do not know how it was, but when I looked down over the edge,
I turned giddy and sick all in a moment, and then I felt that I _must_
fling myself down the precipice. Let this be a warning to us both, my
lad; for it shows that, steady as are our heads aloft at sea, they are
not to be too much depended upon when climbing precipices on shore.
But, come! it is high time that we should be moving again; those fellows
are half-way to the head of the valley by this time, and if we are not
smart, they will have us yet. Do you feel sufficiently rested to tackle
the other half of this cliff?"
"Ay, ay, cap'n, I'm ready," answered Tom; "but, for the Lord's sake,
sir, and for all our sakes, don't you go for to look down and get
tempted to jump off again. Perhaps I mightn't be able to stop you next
time, you know."
"All right, Tom, never fear," answered George; "I'll take care not to
run such an awful risk again, you may be sure. Now are you ready? Then
take your end of this poor fellow, and let us be moving."
But, now that they were ready to resume their ascent, another terrible
difficulty presented itself. On looking upward for a projection by
which to raise himself, Leicester for the first time became aware that
the ledge on which they stood marked a change of strata. Below them it
was all hard rock; above the ledge he could see nothing but a vertical
unbroken face, some twenty feet in height, of soft crumbling sandstone,
so soft indeed that it scarcely merited the name of stone at all, but
might be more fitly described as solidly compressed red sandy soil, of
such slight tenacity that it was possible to scrape it away with the
naked finger. To climb this smooth crumbling face, even with the aid of
a ladder, George at once saw would have been utterly impossible; for,
though it has been spoken of as vertical, it was not strictly so; it
inclined slightly forward, so as actually to overhang them, and a ladder
would therefore not have stood against the face; how, then, could they
hope, encumbered as they were, to surmount it? The task was an obvious
impossibility, and George saw that it would be necessary to seek for a
practicable place elsewhere.
Accordingly Walford was once more laid upon the rock, with Tom to watch
him and guard against any possible mishap, whilst George went off upon
an exploring expedition.
He first tried to the left, passing along the ledge very cautiously,
with his face turned to the wall, so that he might not again be exposed
to the terrible temptation from which he had so recently escaped. At
first he had great hopes of success, the ledge beginning to slope upward
as he passed along it to the eastward; but when he had traversed some
fifty yards or so, it suddenly narrowed away to nothing under a
projecting angle of the superimposed sandstone, and in endeavouring to
get a glimpse round this angle, the soft material crumbled in George's
grasp, he lost his hold, staggered, reeled, struggled ineffectually to
recover his balance, and fell. For a single instant he gave himself up
as lost, and suffered in anticipation all the agonies of a frightful
death; but he had not fallen more than six feet, when his outstretched
hand encountered a long, stout, flexible twig, or rather a young tree,
shooting out from an interstice in the rocks. He grasped it with the
iron grip of a drowning man, grasped it with both hands, and, though it
bent double with his weight, it held out bravely, and enabled him to
regain his footing on the face of the precipice. In another moment he
had scrambled once more on to the ledge, where he lay panting,
breathless, with torn and bleeding hands, but safe.
The appalling peril from which he had thus a second time so narrowly
escaped, inflicted a terrible shock on George's nerves, and it was some
time before he could find courage to once more raise his head and look
about him. The reflection, however, that two men, one of them utterly
helpless, were in the same perilous situation as himself--having indeed
been brought directly into it by him--helped him to once more recover
the command of his nerves, and, somewhat ashamed of their unexpected
weakness, he scrambled to his feet and set out to explore in the
opposite direction.
By the time that he had once more reached the point where Tom sat
patiently awaiting him, the dusk was closing down upon the landscape
with all the rapidity peculiar to the tropics, and, shrouded as they
were in the deep shadow of the precipice, it was already difficult for
them to see each other clearly. This meant still another danger added
to those which already confronted them, and George felt that, unless a
way of escape could quickly be found, they would be compelled to remain
where they were all night, a prospect which involved so many horrible
contingencies that he dared not allow his mind to dwell upon it, but,
turning his attention strictly to the matter in hand, hurried away on
his quest to the westward.
In this direction he was more successful, the ledge, at a distance of
some thirty yards, running into a steep earthy slope, some ten or a
dozen yards in height, above which the precipice again rose sheer to the
top. And, as far as he could see in the quick-gathering darkness, this
precipice again presented a rocky face, up the inequalities of which it
might be possible for them to climb.
But a single glance was enough to assure George that the most perilous
portion of their journey still lay before them. In the first place, the
slope was frightfully steep, rising at an angle of fully fifty degrees
from the horizontal; and, in the next place, it was covered with a long
thick growth of grass, rendering its face almost as slippery as ice.
And its lower edge terminated abruptly in a vertical overhanging face,
similar to that which towered above the place where he had left Tom and
Walford, so that, should either of them slip in traversing this
dangerous part of their journey, they must all, lashed together as they
were, inevitably slide and roll helplessly down and over the edge into
the depths below.
As George contemplated the fearful dangers attending their further
progress, the idea occurred to him that perhaps, after all, now that
their pursuers had gone, and the ground was left clear below, it would
be better to retrace their steps and endeavour to find another and more
practicable way out of the ravine.
But a few seconds' consideration of this plan convinced Leicester of its
utter impracticability. They had, by superhuman exertions, succeeded in
climbing _up_ the precipice; but he knew that they could never get
Walford safely _down_ again. There was nothing for it, then, but to go
on, and _upward_, even though they should find their pursuers awaiting
them at the top, a contingency which so much lost time rendered only too
probable.
Before going back, however, and attempting the passage up that awful
slope, encumbered with Walford's helpless body, George thought it would
be prudent to essay the passage alone, so that he might learn, from
actual experience, the full extent of the danger, and thus be the better
able to guard against disaster.
Accordingly down he went upon hands and knees, and forthwith began the
ascent. His first attempt proved to him that he had in no wise
magnified the perils of the journey, for his knees slipped helplessly
from under him the moment that they touched the grass, and it was only
by clinging desperately with his hands to the long tough herbage that he
escaped being shot down to the bottom and over the edge.
Returning once more to the friendly ledge, which, after the dangers he
had so recently passed through, seemed to afford a position of absolute
safety, George began to cast about in his mind for some means of
overcoming this new difficulty, and at last he hit upon the idea of
making a narrow pathway up the slope by pulling up the grass by the
roots. This, however, he soon found would be a work of considerable
time; but he also discovered that it would be possible, without any
great difficulty, to remove small patches of just sufficient size to
give a precarious, but comparatively secure, foothold, and this he at
once proceeded to do.
Half an hour of arduous labour in this direction enabled him to safely
reach the top of the slope, where, to his great gratification, he
discovered another platform of rock, about six feet wide. Passing along
this, he came suddenly upon an irregular fissure in the rocky face of
the precipice. This fissure was about four feet wide at the bottom, the
walls sloping inwards, like a roof, until they met at a height of seven
or eight feet from the ground. George at once unhesitatingly entered
the opening, and found that it widened somewhat as it receded from the
face of the rock, until at a distance of some five and twenty feet
inwards it abruptly terminated in a small, cave-like aperture, some six
feet in height, and perhaps twelve in diameter, being, as nearly as he
could ascertain, by the sense of touch only, roughly of a circular form.
George was inexpressibly thankful that he had been guided to this place
of refuge, for here, he resolved, the party should pass the night, as
they easily could, with the most perfect safety. It was by this time
far too dark to attempt the awful risk of a passage up the precipice,
and he felt sure that, even could they succeed in safely reaching the
top, their pursuers would be found there, awaiting them. But this
cavernous fissure afforded them the very shelter they required; its
existence was, in all probability, absolutely a secret; and, even were
it not so, it was inaccessible to all but those who chose to risk their
necks in an effort to reach it; and, lastly, they could seek in it the
rest they so absolutely needed, without the haunting fear of rolling
over the precipice in their sleep.
Thinking thus, Leicester rapidly, but cautiously, made his way back to
Tom, whom he found in a state of the greatest mental perturbation, owing
to his prolonged absence.
Hastily describing to the lad the fortunate discovery which he had made,
George made what few preparations were required for the short but
dangerous journey before them, and then the two resumed their load, and
with cautious steps wended their way along the ledge to the treacherous
slope, it was by this time as dark as it would be throughout the night;
but this circumstance rather lessened than increased their peril, for it
prevented their realising as fully as in broad daylight the giddy height
of the narrow path along which they were travelling; whilst the
brilliant light from the stars overhead was sufficient to enable them to
pick their steps, and find the bare patches in the grass, in which it
was so imperatively necessary for them to plant their footsteps. At
last, after nearly a quarter of an hour's arduous labour, and several
narrow escapes from a disastrous accident, the welcome shelter of the
cave-like fissure was reached, and, feeling their way cautiously into
it, they laid Walford down, released him from his uncomfortable bonds,
and hungry, thirsty, and utterly fagged out as they were with the
arduous labours of the day, threw themselves down beside him, and, with
a half-unconscious thanksgiving for their preservation trembling upon
their lips, fell at once into a profound slumber.
Their sleep lasted until late on in the following day, the sun being
already low in the heavens when George was awakened by Walford with a
querulous demand for food and drink. He at once rose, and, proceeding
to the mouth of the fissure, effected a cautious reconnaissance, the
result of which was the establishment of the satisfactory circumstance
that no one was visible in the ravine below. The next point to be
ascertained was, whether his pursuers--any or all of them--were still
maintaining a watch for them on the cliff above. George had not the
slightest doubt but that, when he saw them riding up the valley on the
previous evening, they had resolved to ride round and intercept the
fugitives, or pick up their trail at the cliff-top, if possible; the
question to be settled was, whether, having failed in both these
objects, they would establish a watch upon that part of the cliff at
which the fugitives might be expected to make their appearance; or
whether, believing that pursuit had been baffled, and an escape
effected, they would return discomfited to the estate. Leicester was of
opinion that, failing to detect any sign of the fugitives, and the dogs
being unable to pick up the scent, a suspicion might occur to the minds
of the pursuers that their prey was still lurking in some precarious
resting-place on the face of the precipice, and, in that case, no doubt
a strict watch would be maintained for some hours; but as to how long it
would be before the patience of the watchers became exhausted, or before
the conviction should thrust itself upon them that the fugitives had
escaped, he could of course form no opinion. But, having thus far
evaded capture, he thought it would be only prudent to make sure that
the coast was clear before proceeding further in the prosecution of
their flight.
Having come to this conclusion, he returned to the inner recesses of the
cave, acquainted Tom with his intention to make a trip of exploration as
far, if necessary, as the top of the cliff, and forthwith set out upon
his mission.
George's first act, on issuing from the fissure, was to cast a look
aloft, in order that he might judge of the nature of the task still
before them. The sight was anything but encouraging, the task of
climbing that vertical face--perfectly smooth, to all intents and
purposes, the projections and inequalities being so slight as to be
barely distinguishable beyond a height of twenty or five-and-twenty
feet--seeming to him, even after his recent experience of
cliff-climbing, a sheer impossibility. To climb it, even unencumbered
as he then was, was a task not to be lightly entered upon, and he
determined that, before attempting it, he would seek further, and
endeavour to discover a somewhat less difficult path to the summit.
With this object in view, he continued his way along the rocky platform
upon which he was then standing, until he rounded a sharp angle, where
it abruptly came to an end, and gave place to a rough, jagged, and
broken face, very similar to that which they had ascended on the
previous evening. Casting his eye over and up this uneven face, in an
effort to pick out the most suitable path, his gaze was arrested by the
sight of a bush growing out of the face of the rock. The bush was only
some ten feet distant, and he was therefore close enough to it, not only
to see that it was evidently a species of wild raspberry, but also to
discern the very welcome circumstance that it was literally bending
beneath its weight of ripe fruit. He was not long in making his way to
the spot where it stood, and then, removing his jacket, and knotting the
sleeves round his neck, he, with a seaman's readiness of invention,
converted it into a sort of bag, which he rapidly filled to its utmost
capacity with the cool, ripe, refreshing juicy fruit. With this he
hurried back to the inmates of the cave, and, laying it before them,
bade them eat freely, returning himself to the bush, since it lay
exactly in the way he intended to take, to satisfy the cravings of his
own appetite.