The next day the two lads could only think of their attempt with a
shudder, for their efforts, though they did not quite grasp the
narrowness of their escape from death, had resulted in a peculiar shock
to their system, one effect of which was to make then disinclined to do
anything more than sit and lie in the darkness watching the faint
suggestion of dawn in the direction of the submerged archway. Then,
too, they slept a good deal, while even on the following day they both
suffered a good deal from want of energy.
Towards evening, though, Aleck roused up.
"Look here, sailor," he said, "this will not do. We ought to be doing
something."
"What?" said the middy, sadly. "Try again to drown ourselves?"
"Oh, no; that was a bit of madness. We mustn't try that again."
"What then? It seems to me that we may as well keep going to sleep till
we don't wake again."
"What!" shouted Aleck, his companion's words fully rousing him from his
lethargic state. "Well, of all the cowardly things for a fellow to
say!"
"Cowardly!" cried the middy, literally galvanised into action by the
sound of that word. "You want to quarrel, then, do you? You want to
fight, eh? Very well, I'm your man. Let's light the lanthorn and have
it out at once."
"Oh, very well," cried Aleck. "There's a nice soft bit of sand yonder
that will just do."
The middy snorted like an angry animal and began to breathe hard, while
Aleck, feeling regularly angry now, felt for the tinder-box and matches,
and began to send the sparks flying in showers.
The tinder was soon glowing, the match well alight, and a fresh candle
stuck in its place, the lanthorn being set upon a flat stone, with the
door open, after which the two lads slipped off their jackets and rolled
up their sleeves.
"Shut the lanthorn door, stupid," cried the middy.
"What for?"
"What for? To keep the candle from tumbling out the first time I knock
you up against that stone."
"I should like to catch you at it," said Aleck. "If I shut the door how
am I to see to hit you on the nose?"
"You hit me on the nose? Ha, ha!" cried the middy. "Why, I shall have
you calling out that you've had enough long before you get there."
"We shall see," said Aleck. "Don't you think that you're going to
frighten me with a lot of bounce. Now, then, are you ready?"
"Yes, I'm ready enough. I'll show you whether I'm a coward or not.
Here, hold out your hand."
"What for?"
"To shake hands, of course, and show that we mean fair play."
"I never stopped for that when I had a fight with the Rockabie boys, but
there you are."
Hands were grasped, and the midshipman was about to withdraw his, but it
was held tightly, and somehow or another his own fingers began to
respond in a tight clench.
And thus they stood for quite a minute, while some subtle fluid like
common-sense in a gaseous form seemed to run up their arms through their
shoulders, and then divide, for part to feed their brains and the other
part to make their hearts beat more calmly.
At last Aleck spoke.
"I say," he said, "aren't we going to make fools of ourselves?"
"I don't know," was the reply, "but I'll show you I'm not a coward."
"I never thought you were a coward, but you'd say I was one if I told
you that I didn't want to fight."
"No, I shouldn't," said the middy, "because I can't help feeling that it
is stupid, and I don't want to fight either."
"Then, why should we fight?"
"Oh," said the middy, "there are times when a gentleman's bound to stand
upon his honour. We ought to fight now with pistols; but as we have
none why, of course, it has to be fists. Besides, I don't suppose you
could use a pistol, and it wouldn't be fair for me to shoot you."
"I daresay I know as much about pistols as you do," said Aleck. "I've
shot at a mark with my uncle. But we needn't argue about that."
"No, we've got our fists, so let's get it done."
But they did not begin, for the idea that they really were about to make
fools of themselves grew stronger, and as they dropped their hands to
raise them again as fists, neither liked to strike the first blow.
Suddenly an idea struck Aleck as he glanced sidewise to see their
shadows stretched out in a horribly grotesque, distorted form upon the
dark water, and he smiled to himself as he saw his fists elongated into
clubs, while he said, suddenly:
"I say, I don't want, you to think me a coward."
"Very well, then, you had better show you are not by fighting hard to
keep me from giving you an awful licking."
"You can't do it," said Aleck; "but _I_ say I don't want to fight."
"Perhaps not; but you'll soon find you'll have to, or I shall call you
the greatest coward I ever saw."
"But it seems so stupid when we are in such trouble to make things worse
by knocking one another about."
"Well, yes, perhaps it does," replied the middy.
"Suppose, then, I do something brave than fighting you," said Aleck.
"What could you do?"
"Put the rope round me again and try to swim out. That would be doing
some good."
"You daren't do it?"
"Yes, I dare," cried Aleck, "and I will if you'll say that it's as brave
as fighting you."
"I don't know whether it's as brave," said the middy, "but I'd sooner
fight than try the other. Ugh! I wouldn't try that again for
anything."
"Very well, then, I will," said Aleck, stoutly. "You must own now that
it's a braver thing to do than to begin trying to knock you about.
There, put down your hands, I'm not going to fight."
"You're beaten then."
"Not a bit of it. I'm going to show you that I'm not a coward."
"No, you're not," said the middy, after a few minutes' pause, during
which Aleck ran to the rock and brought back the now dry rope in its
loose coil.
To his surprise the middy took a step forward and caught hold of it
tightly to try and jerk it away.
"What are you going to do?" said Aleck, in wonder.
"Put it back," said the middy.
"Why?"
"Because you're trying to make me seem a coward now."
"I don't understand you."
"Do you think I'm going to be such a coward as to let you do what I'm
afraid to do myself?"
"Then you would be afraid to go again?"
"Yes, of course I should be. So would you."
"Yes, I can't help feeling horribly afraid; but I'll do it," said Aleck.
"To show you're not a coward?"
"Partly that, and partly because I fancy that perhaps I could swim out
this time."
"And I'm sure you couldn't," said the middy, "and I shan't let you go."
"You can't stop me?"
"Yes, I can; I won't hold the rope."
"Then I'll go without."
"Why, there'll be no one to pull you back if you get stuck."
"I don't care; I'll go all the same."
"Then you are a coward," cried the middy, triumphantly.
"Mind what you're about," said Aleck, hotly. "Don't you say that
again."
"Yes, I will. You're a coward, for you're going to try and swim out,
and leave your comrade, who daren't do it, alone here to die."
"Didn't think of that," said Aleck. "There, I won't try to go now; so
don't be frightened."
"What!"
Aleck burst out laughing.
"I say," he cried, "what tempers we have both got into! Let's go and do
something sensible to try and work it off."
"But there's nothing we can do," said the middy, despondently.
"Yes, there is. As the lanthorn's alight, let's go and have a try at
the zigzag."
The middy followed his companion without a word, and they both climbed
up wearily and hopelessly to have another desperate try to dislodge the
stones, but only to prove that it was an impossible task.
Literally wearied out, they descended, after being compelled to desist
by the candle gradually failing, while it had gone right out in the
socket before they reached the cave.
But their utter despondency was a little checked by the sight of the
soft pale light which seemed to rise from the water more clearly than
ever before; and Aleck said so, but the middy was of the opposite
opinion.
"No," he said. "It only seems so after the horrible darkness of that
hole."
"I don't know," said Aleck; "it certainly looks brighter to me. See how
clear the arch looks with the seaweed waving about! I say, sailor, I've
a great mind to have another try."
"No, you haven't," growled the middy, wearily. "I can't spare you. I'm
not going to stop here and die all alone."
"You wouldn't, for I should drag you out after me."
"Couldn't do it after you were drowned."
"I shouldn't be drowned," said Aleck, slowly and thoughtfully.
"Be quiet--don't bother--I'm so tired--regularly beat out after all that
trying up yonder; and so are you. I say, Aleck, I'm beginning to be
afraid that we shall never see the sunshine again."
Aleck said nothing, but lay gazing sadly at the dimly-seen arch in the
water, and followed the waving to and fro of the great fronds of
sea-wrack, till he shuddered once or twice and seemed to feel them
clinging round his head and neck, making it dark, but somehow without
causing the horrible, strangling, helpless sensation he had suffered
from before. In fact, it seemed to be pleasant and restful, and by
degrees produced a sensation of coolness that was most welcome after the
stifling heat at the top of the zigzag, which had been made worse by the
odour of the burning candle.
Then Aleck ceased to think, but lay in the cool, soft darkness, till all
at once he started up sitting and wondering.
"Why, I've been asleep," he said to himself. "Here, sailor."
"Yes; what was that?"
"I don't know. I seemed to hear something."
"Have you been asleep?"
"Yes; have you?"
"I think so," said the middy. "We must have been. But, I say, it
really is much lighter this time."
"So I thought," said Aleck. "And, I say, I can smell the fresh seaweed.
Is the arch going to be open at last?"
_Phee-ew_! came a low, plaintive whistle.
"Hear that?" cried Aleck, wildly.
"Yes, I heard it in my sleep. The place is getting open then. There it
goes again. It must be a gull."
"No, no, no!" cried Aleck, wildly, his voice sounding cracked and broken
from the overpowering joy that seemed to choke him. "Don't you know
what it is?"
"A seagull, I tell you."
"No, no, no! It's Tom Bodger's whistle. You listen now."
There was a dead silence in the cavern, save that both lads felt or
heard the throbbing in their breasts.
"I can't hear anything," said the middy, at last. "What was it?"
"Nothing," gasped Aleck. "I can't--can't whistle now."
But he made another effort to control his quivering tips, mastered them
into a state of rigidity, and produced a repetition of the same low,
plaintive note that had reached their ears.
Directly after, the whistle was repeated from outside, and, as Aleck
produced it once more in trembling tones, the lads leaped to their feet,
for, coming as it were right along the surface of the water, as if
through some invisible opening, there came the welcome sound:
"Ship ahoy! Master Aleck--a--" _suck--suck--flop--flop_--a whisper, and
then something like a sigh.
"It is Tom Bodger!" cried Aleck, in a voice he did not know for his own,
and something seemed to clutch him about the throat, and he knelt there
muttering something inaudible to himself.