Aleck went along the cliff the next day to look out for the boat, fully
intending to turn back if he caught sight of Eben's wife; but as far as
he could make out she was nowhere in that direction. Still he concluded
that she might possibly come to the place she affected, so he determined
to keep on his own side of the depression, lowering himself down to the
shelf in which was the niche or crack, in the belief that he could get a
fair view over the sea from among the scattered masses of rock while
being quite out of the woman's sight if she should come after all.
He swung himself down till he stood upon the shelf, and gave one hasty
look round, to come to the conclusion directly after that if the poor
woman sought his favourite look-out spot he could not have chosen a
worse place, for he would be in full view, no matter where he crouched.
"I know," he said to himself; "I can get over here and lie down in the
crack on the other side."
He began to climb, after making for the hole where the lanthorn and
tinder-box still lay tucked tightly in beyond the reach of the wind; and
the next minute, after making his way diagonally upward, he came upon
the beginning of a steep narrow gully, going right down more and more
deeply, so that forty or fifty yards away he could not see the bottom,
the place having the appearance of being a vast crack formed by a sudden
subsidence of the rocky cliff.
He was now out of sight from the other side of the great depression, and
was just congratulating himself upon his selection of a hiding-place and
look-out combined, when he recalled the sounds he had heard during a
former visit.
"Why, it must have been caused by something falling down here," he
argued, and he looked outward, to see that this was one of the
narrowest, deepest and most savage-looking gullies he had seen, the
place being giddy to look down and impressing him with the belief that
the greatest care was necessary for anyone to move about; and as he
dropped down upon his knees it was with a feeling of relief and safety,
for accustomed though he was to climbing about upon the cliffs, this one
particular spot looked giddy and wild.
To his great satisfaction he found that he could follow the crack right
down to the sea and obtain a good view without being seen, unless anyone
had followed his example and climbed; but what most took his attention
was that though he had been climbing about the place often in search of
the eggs of rare birds, he had never been there before, or noted the
existence of such a deeply-split cavity in the cliffs.
"I must have been able to see it from off the sea," he argued, but gave
himself up to the thought directly after that ridges and hollows had a
completely different aspect when seen from below.
"I should know it now directly if I were sailing by and looked up, of
course. I fancy I can recollect this steep wall-like bit down below
where I'm sitting."
He started the next moment, for a great gull had come gliding up from
behind and passed so closely over his head that he was startled by the
faint whizz of its outspread wings, while the bird itself was so
startled that it uttered a hoarse cry of alarm and plunged down head
foremost like a stone.
"Why, that must have been the kind that made that cry like a hail,"
cried Aleck, as the bird disappeared into the depths of the gully, while
he had hardly realised the thought before there rose from below a faint,
hoarse cry.
"I thought so," he said; "those birds have different cries and they
sound strange, according to where you are."
He did not finish his words, for all at once the peculiar cry arose
again, and this time it seemed to come from out of the deep jagged
hollow, and certainly from the other side.
"How strange!" said the lad, with a feeling akin to dread running
through him. "That can't be a bird."
He listened again, waiting for some minutes in the midst of the silence
of the great wilderness in which he crouched.
Then "Ahoy!" came up, so clearly that there was no room for doubt, and
Aleck's heart began to beat fast as thought after thought flashed
through his brain.
"It must be someone calling," he felt and when after a few minutes the
cry arose again, the thought struck him that it must come from somewhere
beneath his feet, from an opening in the wall of the crack and then
strike against the opposite wall, from which it was reflected, so that
it seemed to come from that side, and from some distance away.
Aleck waited till the cry came across again, and then shouted in answer:
"Hallo there! What is it?"
There was no response. Then after a pause came "Ahoy!" once more.
"Where are you?" shouted Aleck, but there was no reply, and the result
was the same when he tried over and over again.
"Whoever it is, he can't hear me," thought the lad, and growing excited
now as he concluded that some fisherman, or perhaps a strange wanderer,
had slipped, fallen, and perhaps broken a limb, he began to set about
finding him and affording help.
Coming to the belief more fully that the sound came from beneath him,
Aleck lay down upon his chest with his head over the brink of the rocky
gash, and, holding on tightly, strained out as far as he could to look
down. But he could see nothing, and rose up again to look to his left
for the dying out in the solid cliff of the top end of the gorge.
That meaning a difficult climb, he made up his mind, to lower himself
down over the edge, and setting his teeth, he began to lower himself
over; but a slip at the outset so upset his nerves that he scrambled
back, panting as if he had been running a mile.
"Nearly went down," he muttered. "That's not the way to help anyone who
has just fallen."
He paused for a few moments to think about getting help from Eilygugg.
"There are no smugglers at home now," he said to himself, and his
thoughts turned homeward.
"Uncle couldn't climb up here and handle ropes," he muttered; "and as
for Ness--bah! he's a stupid muddling old woman.
"I must get right round somehow and see where the opening is," said the
lad, at last. "But when I have found it, what then? I must get back
here again; and then? Yes, I must have help and a rope. Oh, what a
lonely old place this is when you want anything done! Bah! What a
grumbler you are," he cried, the next moment. "You forgot all about
Tom. He's sure to be over to-day, and I'll bring him with a rope."
This thought heartened the lad up, and he set off cautiously and quickly
to get round by the head of the great rocky gash to the other side.
The journey was very dangerous and bad, but he was a good climber, and
at the end of a dozen yards he was stopped by a great block which lay
across his path with the portion to his right overhanging the gulf,
forcing him to go round by the other end.
This he passed with ease, and he uttered a cry of astonishment the next
moment, for he found himself at the narrow head of a transverse gash
which stopped further progress in the way he intended, but offered
apparently, as it curved round and down, an easy descent to the very
part he wished to reach. And so it proved, for proceeding cautiously,
he began to descend by a narrow ledge or shelf, with the overhanging
wall on his right and a sheer fall of twenty feet on his left.
A few yards further it was forty feet, and again a few yards placed him
in a position that cut off all view of the bottom.
"Won't do to be giddy here," he said to himself. "Who'd have thought of
finding such a place?"
He moved along cautiously, holding on by the rock on his right, and
found that it was singularly cracked and riven, but it afforded good
hold. Directly after a short pause and peer forward and downward to try
if he could see any signs of the poor fellow who had called for help, he
stepped on again slowly and cautiously, anchoring himself, as it were,
by thrusting his arm to the elbow in a perpendicular crack, so that he
could hang outward and get a better view down.
"Hullo!" he ejaculated, in wonder. "How strange!" and he began to
sniff, as a cool dank puff of air saluted his nostrils and he recognised
the peculiar odour of decaying seaweed.
"This narrow crack must go right down to the sea somewhere," he said to
himself. "Well, why not? Rocks do split all sorts of ways. There, I'm
right," he added, for there was another moist puff of cool air, and in
company with it a peculiar far-off whispering sound, one which he well
knew, for he had heard it thousands of times, it being the soft rattling
of pebbles running back over one another after being cast up by a wave.
"This is queer," he muttered, and, withdrawing his arm, he took another
step or two along the ledge, which curved more round to his right, so
that he could not see above a couple of yards, while upon getting to the
end of these he found that he had to pass an angle in the rock face
which brought him to where the ledge widened out considerably.
"I must be just under where I lay down to look over," he said to
himself, and having plenty of room now he turned to look upward, and
then stopped short as if turned to stone, for from somewhere just beyond
where he stood came the soft hollow rush and hiss of shingle following a
retiring wave, and with it a distant hollow-sounding "_Ahoy_!"
But Aleck did not start forward to peer down some deep chasm leading
through the huge cliffs to the sea, but, as has been said, stood fast,
looking upward, as if turned to stone, his attention having been seized
upon by the rattling, rustling sound made by something above his head,
and the next moment a pair of feet came into sight so close to him that
he could have touched them where they hung on a level with his eyes.
They stopped short, with the toes resting for a few moments upon a
projecting stone, and then a man dropped lightly upon the broad ledge
with a panting ejaculation of relief.