Chapter Sixteen.
Attack and Defeat.
Tom Tully had marked down a towering portion of the cliff as being over the spot where they had lost sight of their young officer, and, as it happened, that really was pretty close to the place, so, trudging on in silence after giving a glance in the direction where the cutter lay, now seen only as a couple of lights about a mile from the shore, they soon reached the rocks, where the gunner called a halt.
“Now, my lads,” he said, “get all of a row, face inwards, and make ready to hail. We’ll give him one good ‘Kestrel ahoy!’ and that’ll wake him up, wherever he is. Hallo! stop that chap! There, he’s dodged behind that big stone.”
The men wanted no further inducement than the sight of some one trying to avoid them.
In an instant the quiet stolid row of men were dashing here and there among the rocks in chase of a dark figure, which, from a thorough knowledge of the ground, kept eluding them, darting between the rocks, scrambling over others; and had he had to deal with a couple of pursuers he would have escaped at once, but he had too many on his track, and fortune was rather against him, so that several times over he ran right upon one or other of the party and was nearly taken.
The activity of the young man, for such he seemed to be, was something marvellous; and again and again he made a tremendous leap, scrambled over the rocks, and escaped. The last time, however, he dropped down in a narrow place that formed quite a cul-de-sac, and right in front of Tom Tully.
“What! have I got you?” cried the great stolid fellow; and he made a dash forward, straddling out his legs as if on board ship, when, to his intense astonishment, his quarry bent down, dashed at him, ducked between his knees, struggling through, and throwing the great sailor headlong flat upon his face.
The shout Tom Tully gave brought up Billy Waters; and as the stranger recovered his feet to escape in a fresh direction, he ran right into the gunner’s arms, to be held with a grip like iron.
The man had his arms free, however, and putting his fingers into his mouth he gave vent to a piercing whistle, close to the gunner’s ear.
“Oh, that’s it, is it?” said Billy Waters. “Well, my lad, I sha’n’t let you go any the more for that. Here, lend a hand my lads, and lash his wristies and elbows together. We’ve got him, and we’ll keep him till we get back Muster Leigh. Now then, Tom Tully, you hold him while I lash his wristies. That’s your style. I say, he won’t get away once I— Look at that!”
Tom Tully had, as he thought, taken a good hold of the prisoner, when the man gave himself a sudden wrench, dived under the gunner’s arm, and was gone.
“Well, of all—” began Tom Tully.
“Why didn’t you hold him?” cried the gunner.
“I thought he was a man and not a slippery eel,” cried Tom Tully. “He’s for all the world like one o’ them big congers Muster Leigh caught off Hastings.”
“Yes,” cried the gunner, “but he did hold ’em when he caught ’em. Look out, my lads! he come your way.”
The men were well on the alert this time, and one of them, in spite of the darkness, saw which way the prisoner had taken, that being none other than the narrow passage between the rocks which Hilary had found.
He saw him go down here, and then caught sight of him as he climbed over the rock.
“This way,” shouted the sailor as he scrambled over after the escaping man, got into the chasm on the other side, and then following him, just in time to hear a dull, heavy thud, and his mate staggered back against him half stunned by a heavy blow.
Just then there was a sharp whiz; and he felt the wind of a blow aimed at him from the rocks above his head, to which he replied by lugging out his hanger and dealing a vigorous blow at his unseen enemy, but without effect.
“Here, this way,” he shouted. “Waters! Tom Tully! Here they are.”
A sturdy “Ahoy!” came in response, just as the first man began to scramble to his feet and stood rubbing his head.
“Where away?” cried Billy Waters.
“Here ho!” replied both the men in the narrow pass; and beading the rest of the party, the gunner, after another hail or two, scrambled over and joined the two first men, every one of the party now having his unsheathed cutlass in his hand.
“Well,” cried the gunner excitedly, “where are they?”
“Close here,” said the man who had received the blow. “One of ’em hit me with a handspike.”
“And some one cut at me from up above on the rocks,” cried the other.
The gunner held up his hand to command silence, and then listened attentively.
“Why there ar’n’t no one,” he cried in tones of disgust. “You Joe Harris, you run up again a rock; and as for you, Jemmy Leeson, you’ve been asleep.”
The two men indignantly declared that they had spoken the truth; but with an impatient “Pish!” the gunner went forward along the narrow way.
“Here, come along,” he said; and as the words left his lips those behind heard a heavy blow, and Billy Waters came hastily back.
“That ain’t fancy,” said one of the men, “unless Billy hit his head again the rocks.”
“It warn’t my head,” whispered the gunner drawing in his breath, and trying to suppress the pain. “It caught me right on the left shoulder. I shall be all right directly, my lads, and we’ll give it ’em. I’ll bet that’s how they sarved poor Master Leigh; and we’ve dropped right into the proper spot. Just wait till I get my breath a bit.”
“Think it’s the smugglers?” said Tom Tully.
“Sartain,” was the reply. “I wish we had a lantern or two. But never mind. If we can’t see to hit them, they can’t see to hit us; so it’s broad as it’s long.”
“We shall want the pistols, shan’t we?” said one of the men.
“Pistols? no,” cried the gunner. “Stick to your whingers, lads. It’s no use to fire a piece without you can take good aim, and you can’t do that in the dark—it’s only waste of powder. Now, then, are you ready?”
“Ay, ay,” was whispered back in the midst of the ominous silence that prevailed.
“Then look here,” cried the gunner, “I shall go in at ’em roosh; and if they downs me, don’t you mind, lads, but keep on; go over me at once and board the place.”
“Lookye here,” growled Tom Tully, “I’m ’bout as hard as iron; they won’t hurt me. Let me go fust, capten.”
As he spoke the great fellow spat in his hand before taking a tighter grip of his weapon, and making a step forward.
“Just you keep aft, will yer, Tom Tully, and obey orders?” said the gunner, seizing the great fellow by the tail and dragging him back. “I’m skipper here, and I’m going to lead. Now, lads, are you all ready?”
“Ay, ay,” was the reply.
“Then I ar’n’t,” said the gunner. “That crack pretty nigh split my shoulder. Now I am. Close up, and hit hard. We’re all right, my lads; they’re smugglers, and they hit us fust.”
The gunner made a dash forward, and, as they had expected, a concealed enemy struck a tremendous blow at him; but Billy Waters was a sailor, and accustomed to rapid action. By quickness of movement and ready wit he avoided the blow, which, robbed of a good deal of its force, struck Tom Tully full in the chest, stopping him for a moment, but only serving to infuriate him, as, recovering himself, he dashed on after the gunner.
A sharp fight ensued, for now, as the sailors forced their way on, they found plenty of antagonists. Most of them seemed to be armed with stout clubs like capstan-bars, with which they struck blow after blow of the most formidable character from where they kept guard at various turns of the narrow passage, while the sailors could not reach them with their short cutlasses.
It was sharp work, and with all their native stubbornness the little party fought their way on, attacking and carrying yard after yard of the passage, forcing the smugglers to retreat from vantage ground to vantage ground, and always higher and higher up the rocks.
The attacking party were at a terrible disadvantage, for the place was to them like a maze, while the smugglers kept taking them in the rear, and striking at them from the most unexpected positions, till the sailors were hot with a rage that grew fiercer with every blow.
At the end of ten minutes two of the men were down, and the gunner and Tom Tully panting and breathless with their exertions; but far from feeling beaten they were more eager than ever to come to close quarters with their antagonists, for, in addition to the fighting spirit roused within them, they were inflamed with the idea of the large stores of smuggled goods that they would capture: velvets and laces and silks in endless quantities, with kegs of brandy besides. That they had hit accidentally upon the party who had seized Mr Leigh they had not a doubt, and so they fought bravely on till they reached a narrower pass amongst the rocks than any they had yet gone through. So narrow was it that they could only approach in single file, and, hemmed in as they were with the rocks to right and left, the attack now resolved itself into a combat of two—to wit, Billy Waters and a great broad-shouldered fellow who disputed his way. The men who backed up the big smuggler were apparently close behind him; but it was now too dark to see, and, to make matters worse for the gunner, there was no room for him to swing his cutlass; all he could do was to make clumsy stabs with the point, or try to guard himself from the savage thrusts made at him with the capstan bar or club by the smuggler.
This went on for some minutes without advantage on either side, till, growing tired, Billy Waters drew back for a moment. “Now, my lads,” he whispered, “I’m going to roosh him. Keep close up, Tom Tully, and nail him if I go down.”
Tom Tully growled out his assent to the order given to him, and the next moment the gunner made a dash forward into the darkness, striking sharply downwards with his cutlass, so sharply that the sparks flew from the rock, where his weapon struck, while on recovering himself for a second blow he found that it, too, struck the rock, and Billy Waters uttered a yell as he started back, overcome with superstitious horror on finding himself at the end of the narrow rift, and quite alone.
“What’s the matter, matey?” growled Tom Tully; “are you hurt?”
“No. Go and try yourself,” said the gunner, who was for the moment quite unnerved.
Tom Tully squeezed by, and, making a dash forward, he too struck at the rock, and made the sparks fly, after which he poked about with the point of his cutlass, which clinked and jingled against the stones.
“Why, they ar’n’t here!” he cried. “Look out!”
Every one did look out, but in vain. They were in a very narrow passage between two perpendicular pieces of rock, and they had driven the smugglers back step by step into what they expected to find to be a cavern crammed with treasure; but now that the end was reached they could feel nothing in the dark but the flat face of the rock, and this seemed to slope somewhat over their heads, and that was all.
Billy Waters’ surprise had now evaporated along with his alarm, and pushing to the front once more he set himself to work to find how the enemy had eluded them.
They could not have gone through the rock, he argued, and there was no possible way that he could feel by which they had climbed up. Neither was ascent possible by scaling the rock to right or left, unless they had had a ladder, and of that there did not seem to have been any sign.
For a few moments the gunner stood as if nonplussed. Then an idea occurred to him.
Taking a pistol from his belt he quickly drew out the bullet and a portion of the powder before flashing off the other over some which he laid loose upon the rock.
This lit up the place for the moment, but revealed nothing more than they knew before, and that was that they were walled in on either side by rock, and that a huge mass rose up in front.
“It’s a rum ’un,” growled Tom Tully; and then again, “It’s a rum ’un. I say, Billy Waters, old mate, what’s gone o’ them chaps?”
The gunner felt ready to believe once more that there was something “no canny” about the affair, but he shook off the feeling, and began searching about once more for some sign or other of his enemies; but he sought in vain, and at last he turned to his companions to ask them what they had better do.
Such a proceeding would, however, be derogatory to his dignity, he thought, so he proceeded to give his opinion on the best course.
“Look here, my lads,” he said in a whisper; “it seems to me that we ought to have come on this trip by daylight.”
“That ere’s what I said,” growled Tom Tully.
“All right, Tommy, only don’t be so precious proud of it,” said the leader. “I says we ought to have come on this trip by daylight.”
“As I says afore, that’s what I did say,” growled Tom Tully again; but this time his superior officer refused to hear him, and continued:
“As we didn’t come by daylight, my lads, we ought to have had lanterns.”
“Ay, ay,” said one of the men.
“So I think,” said the gunner; “we’d best go back and get the lanterns, so as to have a good search, or else come back and do the job by daylight.”
“Ay, ay,” was chorussed by three of the party.
“Yes, it’s all very well to say ‘Ay, ay,’ and talk about lanterns and daylight,” growled Tom Tully; “but I don’t like going off and leaving one’s work half done. I want to have a go at that chap as fetched me a crack with a handspike, and I shan’t feel happy till I have; so now then, my lads.”
“What’s the good o’ being obst’nit, Tommy?” said his leader. “No one wants to stop you from giving it to him as hit you, only just tell me where he is.”
“That ar’n’t my job, Billy Waters,” cried the big fellow; “that’s your job. You leads, and I does the fighting. Show him to me and I’ll make him that sore as he shall wish he’d stopped at home.”
“Come on, then, and let’s get the lanterns, and come back then,” said the gunner. “It ar’n’t no use to be knocking ourselves about here in the dark. Come on.”
He tried to lead the way back as they had come, each man cutlass in hand, and well on the alert in case of attack; but nothing interposed to stop them as they scrambled and clambered over the rocks till they got to the open shore once more, just as, in front of them and out in the pitchy blackness, there was a flash, a report, and then the wall of darkness closed up once more.
“Oh! ah, we’re a-coming,” said Billy Waters, who, now that the excitement was over, began to feel very sore, while his companions got along very slowly, having a couple of sorely-beaten men to help. “Anybody make out the ship’s lights?”
“I can see one on ’em,” growled Tully.
“And where’s our boat?” cried the gunner. “Jim Tanner, ahoy!”
“Ahoy!” came in a faint voice from a distance.
“There he is,” said Billy Waters. “Come, my lads, look alive, or we shall have the skipper firing away more o’ my powder. I wish him and Jack Brown would let my guns alone. Now then, Jim Tanner, where away?”
“Ahoy!” came again in a faint voice, and stumbling on through the darkness, they came at last upon the boatkeeper, tied neck and heels, and lying in the sand.
“Who done this?” cried the gunner.
“I dunno,” said the man; “only cast me loose, mates.”
This was soon done, the man explaining that a couple of figures suddenly jumped upon him out of the darkness, and bound him before he could stand on his defence.
“Why, you was asleep, that’s what you was,” cried the gunner angrily. “Nice job we’ve made of it. My! ar’n’t it dark? Now, then, where’s this here boat? Bring them two wounded men along. D’yer hear?”
“Oh, it ar’n’t been such a very bad time,” growled Tom Tully; “we did have a bit of a fight!”
“Fight? ay! and didn’t finish it. Now, then, Tom Tully, where’s that boat? Can you see her?”
“Yes; here she is,” growled the big sailor; “and blest if some one ar’n’t took away the oars; and—yes that they have. No getting off to-night, lads; they’ve shoved a hole in her bottom.”
“What!” cried Billy Waters, groping his way to the boat; and then, in a hoarse, angry voice, “and no mistake. She’s stove-in!”
Chapter Seventeen.
A Few Ideas on Escape.
Hilary Leigh felt very angry at being shut up in his prison, but the good breakfast with which he had been supplied went some way towards mollifying him, and as he sat upon the window-sill he felt that Sir Henry would much like to win him over to his side.
“And he is not going to do it,” he said half aloud.
It was a lovely day, and as he sat there gazing out at the view, he thought he had never seen anything so beautiful before. It was wonderful, too, how a comfortable meal had improved his appreciation of what he saw.
But even then there were drawbacks. A rough and narrow stone seat, upon which you can only sit by holding on tightly to some rusty iron bars, does go against the full enjoyment of a scene, especially if you know that those rusty iron bars prevent you from going any farther.
So before long Hilary grew weary of his irksome position, and, letting himself down, he had a walk along each side of the old chapel, striding out as fast as he could, till he fancied he heard his old playmate outside, when he pounded up to the window again, but only to be disappointed.
This went on hour after hour, but still Adela did not come, and as the afternoon wore on he began to think it extremely cruel and unsympathising.
“She knows I’m shut up here like a bird in a cage, and yet she does not come to say a single word to cheer me.”
The side where the window was seemed darkened now, for the sun had got well round to the west, and as he climbed up for another good look out the landscape seemed to wear fresh charms, exciting an intense longing to get out and ramble over the sunshine-flooded hills, or to lie down beneath the shaded trees.
He was accustomed to a prison life, as it were, being shut up so much within a little sloop; but that wooden prison was always on the move, and never seemed to oppress him as did the four dull walls of his present abode.
“I shall wear out the knees of my breeches in no time, if I’m to be kept in here long,” he said, as he was in the act of making a run and a jump for another look out; but he stopped short just in the act, for he fancied he heard the rattle of a key, and directly after he knew he was not deceived, for there was a heavy step, then another, and then a key was placed in the big door.
“Well, this is being made a prisoner, and no mistake. Hallo, handsome!” he cried aloud, as the forbidding-looking man addressed by Sir Henry as Allstone entered the place with another looking little more amiable, and both were bringing something in the shape of food.
“What?” said the man surlily.
“I said ‘Hallo, handsome!’” cried Hilary. “Have you come to let me out?”
The man uttered a low hoarse chuckle, which sounded like a laugh, but his face did not move a muscle, and he looked as if he were scowling heavily.
“We’ll carry you out some day, my young buck,” he said, “feet foremost. There’s a little burying-ground just outside the place here.”
“Thank you,” replied Hilary. “Is that meant for a joke?”
“Joke? No, I never joke. Here I’ve brought you something to eat, and you won’t get any more till to-morrow.”
He set the rough tray he carried on the floor, and the man who was with him did the same, after which they both stood and stared at the prisoner.
“Send him away,” said Hilary suddenly, and he pointed to the fresh man.
“What for?”
“I want to talk to you.”
Allstone gave his head a jerk and the man went outside. “Look here,” said Hilary, “how long are you going to keep me here?”
“Till the skipper is tired of you, I suppose, or till Sir Henry’s gone.”
“And then you’ll let me go?”
“Oh, yes,” said the man grimly. “We shall let you go then.”
There was another hoarse chuckle, which appeared very strange, for it did not seem to come from the man, who scowled at him in the same heavy, morose way.
“Oh! come! you’re not going to frighten me into the belief that you can kill me, my man,” cried Hilary. “I’m too old for that.”
“Who’s to know if we did?” said the fellow.
“Why, you don’t suppose that one of his majesty’s officers can be detained without proper search being made. You’ll have the crew of my ship over here directly, and they’ll burn the place about your ears.”
“Thankye,” said the man. “Is that all you want to say?”
“No. Now look here; I’ll give you five guineas if you’ll let me go some time to-night. You could break through that window, and it would seem as if I had done it myself.”
For answer the man turned upon his heel and stalked out of the place without a word.
“Get out, you rude boor!” cried Hilary, as the door slammed and the key turned. “Kill me and bury me! Bah! I should like to see them do it.”
A faint noise outside made him scale the window once more; but there was no sign of Adela, so he returned.
“Well, they’re not going to starve me,” he said to himself, as he looked at the plates before him, one containing a good-looking pork pasty, the others a loaf and a big piece of butter, while a large brown jug was half full of milk.
There was a couple of knives, too, the larger and stronger of which he took and thrust beneath the straw.
“What a piggish way of treating a fellow!” he muttered. “No chair, no table; not so much as a stool. Well, I’m not very hungry yet, and as this is to last till to-morrow I may as well wait.”
He stood thinking for a bit, and then the idea of escaping came more strongly than ever, and he went and examined the door, which seemed strong enough to resist a battering-ram.
There was the window as the only other likely weak place, but on climbing up and again testing the mortar with the point of his knife, the result was disheartening, for the cement of the good old times hardened into something far more difficult to deal with than stone. In fact, he soon found that he would be more likely to escape by sawing through the bars or digging through the stone.
“Well, I mean to get out if Lipscombe don’t send and fetch me; and I’ll let them see that I’m not quite such a tame animal as to settle down to my cage without some effort;” and as he spoke he looked up at the ceiling as being a likely place to attack.
He had the satisfaction of seeing that it was evidently weak, and that with the exercise of a little ingenuity there would be no difficulty in cutting a way through.
But there was one drawback—it was many feet above his head, and impossible of access without scaffold or ladder.
“And I’m not a fly, to hold on with my head downwards,” he said, half aloud.
He slowly lowered himself from the window-sill, and had another good look at the walls, tapping them here and there where they had been plastered; but though they sounded hollow, they seemed for the most part to be exceedingly thick, and offered no temptation for an assault.
He stood there musing, with the place of his confinement gradually growing more gloomy, and the glow in the sky reminding him of how glorious the sea would look upon such an evening.
There were a few strands of straw lying about, and he proceeded to kick them together in an idle fashion, his thoughts being far away at the time, when a sudden thought came to him like a flash.
The place was paved with slabs of stone, and it had been the chapel of the old mansion; perhaps there were vaults underneath, or maybe cellars.
The more he thought, the more likely this seemed. The old builders in that part of England believed in providing cool stores for wine and beer. In many places the dairy was underground, and why might there not be some place below here from which he could make his escape?
He stamped with his foot and listened.
Hollow, without a doubt.
He tried in another part, and another; and no matter where, the sound was such as would arise from a place beneath whose floor there was some great vault.
“That’ll do,” he said to himself, with a half-laugh. “I’m satisfied; so now I’ll have something to eat.”
The evening was closing in as he seated himself upon the straw and began his meal, listening the while for some sign of the presence of Adela under his prison window, but he listened in vain. There was the evening song of the thrush, and he could hear poultry and the distant grunting of his friend the pig. Now and then, too, there came through the window the soft cooing of the pigeons on the roof, but otherwise there was not a sound, and the place might have been deserted by human kind.
“So much the better for me,” he said, “if I want to escape;” and having at last finished his meal, he placed the remains on one side for use in the morning, and tried to find a likely stone in the floor for loosening, but he had to give up because it was so dark, and climbed up once more to the window to gaze out now at the stars, which moment by moment grew brighter in the east.
There was something very soft and beautiful in the calm of the summer night, but it oppressed him with its solitude. In one place he could see a faint ray of light, apparently from some cottage window; but that soon went out, and the scene that had been so bright in the morning was now shrouded in a gloom which almost hid the nearest trees.
Now and then he could hear a splash in the moat made by fish or water-vole, and once or twice he saw the star-bejewelled surface twinkle and move as if some creature were swimming across; but soon that was all calm again, and the booming, buzzing noise of some great beetle sweeping by on reckless wing sounded quite loud.
“It’s as lively as keeping the middle watch,” said Hilary impatiently. “The best thing I can do is to go to sleep.”
Hilary Leigh was one not slow to act upon his convictions, and getting down he proceeded to make himself as snug a nest as he could in the straw, lay down, pulled some of it over him, to the great bedusting of his uniform, and in five minutes he was fast asleep.
Chapter Eighteen.
Billy Waters finds it out.
“Well,” said Billy Waters, “of all the cowardly, sneaking tricks anybody could do, I don’t know a worse one than staving in a man’s boat. Yah! a fellow who would do such a thing ought to be strung up at the yardarm, that he ought!”
“Every day,” growled Tom Tully. “Well, matey, how is we to get aboard?”
“What’s the good of asking me?” cried Billy Waters, who was regularly out of temper. “Leave that gun alone, will yer?” he roared as there was another flash and a report from the cutter. “It’s enough to aggravate a hangel, that it is,” he continued. “No sooner have I left the cutter, and my guns that clean you might drink grog out of ’em, than the skipper and that Jack Brown gets fooling of ’em about and making ’em foul. They neither of ’em know no more about loading a gun than they do about being archbishops; but they will do it, and they’ll be a-busting of ’em some day. Firing again, just as if we don’t know the first was a recall! Here, who’s got a loaded pistol?”
“Here you are, matey,” said Tom Tully.
“Fire away, then, uppards,” said the gunner; “and let ’em know that we want help.”
The flash from the pistol cut the darkness; there was a sharp report, and the gunner fired his own pistols to make three shots.
“There,” he said, replacing them in his belt. “That’ll make him send another boat, and if that there Jacky Brown’s in it I shall give him a bit of my mind.”
There was a long pause now, during which the weary men sat apart upon the sands, or with their backs propped against the sides of the damaged boat, but at last there came a hail out of the darkness, to which Tom Tully answered with a stentorian “Boat a-hoy-oy!”
“Who told you to hail, Tom Tully?” cried the gunner. “I’m chief orsifer here, so just you wait until you are told.”
Tom Tully growled, and the gunner walked down to where the waves beat upon the shingle just as the regular plash-plash of the oars told of the coming of the boat from the cutter with the boatswain in command, that worthy leaping ashore, followed by half a dozen men.
“What’s on?” he cried. “Have you found Muster Leigh?”
“No.”
“What did you signal for?”
“Boat. Ourn’s stove-in, and we’ve got knocked about awful.”
“What! by the smugglers?”
“Ay, my lad. They beat us off.”
“Then, now there’s reinforcements, let’s go and carry all afore us.”
“It’s all very fine for you, coming fresh and ready, to talk,” said the gunner; “but it ar’n’t no use, my lad—we’re reg’lar beat out. They got away somehow, and you want daylight to find ’em.”
“Then you may go up the side of the cutter first, my lad, that’s all I’ve got to say,” said the boatswain. “You don’t catch me facing the skipper to-night.”
It was a close pack to get all the men on board, but it was successfully accomplished, the stove-in boat taken in tow, and the side of the cutter reached at last, where, as the boatswain had vaguely hinted, there was a storm. Billy Waters was threatened with arrest, and he was abused for an hour for his clumsy management of the expedition.
“A child would have managed it better, sir,” cried the lieutenant; “but never was officer in his majesty’s service worse served than I am. Not one subordinate have I on whom I can depend; I might just as well get a draught of boys from the guardship, and if it was not for the men and the marines I don’t know what I should do. Pipe down.”
The men were piped down, glad enough to get something to eat, and then to crawl to their hammocks, out of which they rolled in the morning seeming little the worse for their engagement, the injured men being bruised pretty severely, though they would not own to their hurts, being too eager, as they put it, to go and pay their debts.
For quite early the cutter began to sail in pretty close to the shore, the carpenter busy the while in getting a fresh plank in the bottom of the stove-in boat, having it ready by the time the lieutenant mustered his men and told them off into the boats, leaving the boatswain in command of the cutter and leading the expedition himself.
The men fancied once or twice that they could see people on the cliffs watching their movements, but they could not be sure, and as the boats grated on the shingle the rocks looked as desolate and deserted as if there had not been a soul there for years.
The men were well-armed, and ready to make up for their misadventure of the previous night, and Billy Waters being sent to the front to act as guide he was not long in finding out the narrow entrance amongst the rocks, but only to be at fault directly after, on account of places looking so different in broad daylight to what they did when distorted by the shadowy gloom.
He had come to the head-scratching business, when a rub is expected to brighten the intellect, and felt ready to appeal to his companions for aid and counsel when he suddenly recollected that they had clambered over a rock here, and this he now did, shouting to his companions to come on, just as the lieutenant was approaching to fulminate in wrath upon his subordinate’s ignorance.
“Here you are,” he cried, and one after the other the men tumbled down the rock, following him through each well-remembered turn—spots impressed upon them by the blows they had received, until they were brought to a standstill in a complete cul-de-sac, through a passage so narrow that one man could have held it against a dozen if there had been anything to hold.
The lieutenant squeezed his way past the men till he stood beside his subordinate.
“Well, why have you brought us here?” he exclaimed.
“This here’s the place where we chased ’em to, your honour,” said the gunner, “and then they disappeared like.”
“But you said it was so dark that you could not see any one.”
“Yes, your honour, we couldn’t hardly see ’em; but they disappeared all the same.”
“Where? How?”
“Some’eres here, your honour.”
“Nonsense, man! The rock’s thirty feet high here, and they could not go up that.”
“No, your honour.”
“Then where did they go?”
“That’s what none of us can’t tell, your honour.”
“Look here, Waters,” said the lieutenant in a rage; “do you mean to tell me that you have let me lead his majesty’s force of marines and sailors to the attack of a smugglers’ stronghold, and then got nothing more to show than a corner in the rocks?”
Billy Waters scratched his head again and looked up at the face of the rock, then at the sides, and then down at his feet, before once more raising his eyes to his commander.
“Now, sir!” exclaimed the latter, “what have you to say?”
Billy Waters appealed to the rocks again in mute despair, but they were as stony-faced as ever.
“Do you hear me, sir?” cried the lieutenant. “The fact of it is that you all came ashore, got scandalously intoxicated, and then began fighting among yourselves.”
“No, we didn’t,” growled Tom Tully from somewhere in the rear.
“Who was that? What mutinous scoundrel dared to speak like that?” cried the lieutenant; but no one answered, though the question was twice repeated. “Very good, then,” continued the lieutenant; “I shall investigate this directly I am back on board. Waters, consider yourself under arrest.”
“All right, your honour,” said the gunner; “but if I didn’t get a crack on the shoulder just about here from some one, I’m a Dutchman.”
“Ay, ay,” was uttered in chorus; and the members of the previous night’s party stared up at the rocks on all sides, in search of some evidence to lay before their doubting commander; but none being forthcoming, they reluctantly followed him back to the open shore, where, as there was nothing to be seen but rocks, sand, and stones, and the towering cliff, they proceeded back to the boats.
“Fools! idiots! asses!” the lieutenant kept muttering till they embarked, the gunner and Tom Tully being in one boat, the lieutenant in the other, which was allowed to get well on ahead before the occupants of the second boat ventured to speak, when Tom Tully became the spokesman, the gunner being too much put out by the rebuff he had met with to do more than utter an occasional growl.
“Lookye here, my lads,” said Tully; “arter this here, I’ll be blessed.”
That was all he said; but it was given in so emphatic a tone, and evidently meant so much, that his messmates all nodded their heads in sage acquiescence with his remark. Then they looked at each other and bent steadily to their oars, in expectation of what was to take place as soon as they got on board.
By the time they were three-quarters of the way Billy Waters had somewhat recovered himself.
“I’ve got it,” he exclaimed.
“Got what?” said three or four men at once.
“Why that ’ere. I see it all now. Them chaps lives atop o’ the cliff when they ar’n’t afloat, and they’ve got tackle rigged up ready, and what do they do but whip one another up the side o’ the rock, just as you might whip a lady out of a boat up the side of a three-decker.”
Tom Tully opened his mouth and stared at the gunner in open admiration.
“Why, what a clever chap you are, Billy!” he growled. “I shouldn’t ha’ thought o’ that if I’d lived to hundred-and-two.”
“I see it all now plain enough, mates,” continued the gunner. “I was hitting at that chap one minute in the dark, and then he was gone. He’d been keeping me off while his mates was whipped up, and then, when his turn came, up he goes like a bag o’ biscuit into a warehouse door at Portsmouth, and I’ll lay a tot o’ grog that’s what’s become of our young orsifer.”
“Hark at him!” cried Tom Tully, giving his head a sidewise wag. “That’s it for sartain; and if I wouldn’t rather sarve under Billy Waters for skipper than our luff, I ar’n’t here.”
“You’d best tell him, then, as soon as we get on board,” said one of the men.
“What! and be called a fool and a hidiot!” cried the gunner. “Not I, my lads. I says let him find it out for hisself now, for I sha’n’t tell nothing till I’m asked.”
In this spirit the crew of the second boat reached the side of the cutter, went on board, the boats were hoisted up, and Billy Waters had the pleasure of finding himself placed under arrest, with the great grief upon his mind that his guns were left to the tender mercies of the boatswain, and a minor sorrow in the fact that his supply of grog was stopped.
Chapter Nineteen.
In the Middle Watch.
How long Hilary had been asleep he did not know, but he was aroused suddenly by something touching his face, and he lay there wide awake on the instant, wondering what it meant.
And now for the first time the hardship of his position came with renewed force. He was accustomed to a rough life on board ship, where in those days there were few of the luxuries of civilisation, but there he had a tolerably comfortable bed. Here he had straw, and the absence of a coverlet of any description made him terribly cold.
The cold chill did not last many seconds after his awaking, for he felt a strange sensation of heat come over him; his hands grew moist, and in a state of intense excitement he lay wondering what it was that had touched his face.
He could not be sure, but certainly it felt like a cold, soft hand, and he waited for a renewal of the touch, determined to grasp at it if it came again.
He was as brave as most lads of his age, but as he lay there, startled into a sudden wakefulness, it was impossible to help thinking of Adela’s words spoken that morning and his own light remarks, and for a time he felt in a strange state of perturbation.
All was perfectly still, and it was so dark that he could not for some time make out the shape of the window against the night sky; but inside his prison there was a faint light, so faint that it did not make the wall visible, and towards this he strained his eyes, wondering whence it came.
“Why, what a coward I am!” he said to himself, as he made an effort to master his childish fears. “Ghosts, indeed! What nonsense! I’m worse than a child—afraid of being in the dark.”
He lay listening with the straw rustling at his slightest movement, and then, unable to bear the uncertainty longer, he started up on one elbow.
As he did so there was a quick noise to his right, and he turned sharply in that direction.
“I might have known it,” he muttered—“rats. I daresay they swarm in this old place. How did that fellow get in? I saw no holes.”
Unable to answer the question, he turned his attention to the faint light that seemed to pervade the place, and, after a time, he made out that it struck down through some crack or crevice in the ceiling.
As he tried to make out where, it seemed to die away, leaving the place as black as ever; but now, in place of the depressing silence, he could hear that something was going on. There was a dull noise somewhere below him, making his heart beat fast with excitement, for it was an endorsement of his ideas that there was a cellar or vault. Then, in the distance, he fancied he could hear the rattle of chains, and the impatient stamp of a horse, with once or twice, but very faintly heard, a quick order or ejaculation.
“I wonder whether there are many rats here?” he thought, for he wanted to get up and clamber to the window, and look out to see if he could witness any of the proceedings of his captors.
It was an unpleasant thought that about the rats, for, as a matter of course, he began directly afterwards to recall all the old stories about people being attacked by rats, and half devoured by the fierce little animals; and it was some time before he could shake off the horrible idea that if he moved dozens of the little creatures might attack him.
Making an effort over himself to master his cowardly feelings, he sprang up and stood listening; but there was not so much as a scuffle of the tiny feet, and groping his way to the wall beneath the window, he climbed up and looked out, but could see nothing, only hear voices from the other side of the house.
Directly after, though, he heard some one apparently coming to his prison; for there were the steps upon the boarded floor, then others upon a stone passage, and a light shone beneath his door.
“They sha’n’t find me up here,” he thought; and he lowered himself down; but, to his surprise, instead of whoever it was coming right to his door, he seemed to go down some steps, with another following him. The light disappeared, and then the footsteps ceased, and he could hear the rumbling mutter of voices below his feet.
“I hope they are not getting up a gunpowder plot below,” said Hilary to himself, for his dread had given place to curiosity. “I’ll be bound to say that there’s a regular store of good things down there waiting to be turned into prize-money for my lads when I once get back on board. Hallo! here they come again.”
The ascending steps were heard plainly enough, and the light reappeared, shining feebly beneath the door; and, going softly across, Hilary looked through the great keyhole, and could see the ill-looking man Allstone with a candle in one hand and a little keg that might have contained gunpowder or spirit upon his shoulder.
“Here,” he whispered to his companion, “lay hold while I lock up.”
It was all in a moment. The keg was being passed from one to the other, when, between them, they let it fall with a crash, knocking the candle out of Allstone’s hands.
Hilary saw the flash of the contents of the keg as the candle fell upon the stones; then there was the noise of a dull explosion that rattled the door; and as the prisoner started back from the door a stream of blue fire began to run beneath it, and he heard one of the men yell out:
“There’s that young officer in there, and he’ll be burned to death!”
Chapter Twenty.
A Fiery Trial.
It was a terrible position, and for a few moments Hilary felt helpless to move.
That blue stream of fire came gurgling and fluttering beneath the door, spreading rapidly over the floor, filling the chapel with a ghastly glare; and the prisoner saw that in a few moments it would reach the straw.
Even in those exciting moments he fully comprehended the affair. He knew, as in a case he had once seen on shipboard, that this was spirit of extraordinary strength, and that the vapour would explode wherever it gathered, even while the surface of the stream was burning.
He did not stand still, though, to think, but with all the matter-of-fact, business habitude of one accustomed to a life of emergencies, he proceeded to drag the straw into the corner farthest away from the increasing flame.
The next minute he saw that this corner was the one nearest the window, and that if he had to take refuge there, and the flame extended to the straw, there would be a tremendous blaze almost beneath him.
Setting to work, he dragged it away into another corner, sweeping up the loose pieces as rapidly as he could, and even as he did so the fluttering blue-and-orange flames advanced steadily across the floor, cutting off his access to the window, and rapidly spreading now all over the place, for the passage had a gradual descent to the door, and nearly the whole of the spilt spirit came bubbling and streaming in.
It was a beautiful, although an appalling sight, for the surface of the spirit was all dancing tongues of fire—red, blue, and orange, mingled with tiny puffs of smoke and bright sparks as it consumed the fragments of straw that lay upon the stones.
It had reached the opposite wall now, and ran as well right up to the window, the floor being now one blaze, except in the corner where Hilary stood on guard, as if to keep the flames back from the straw.
But now he found that he had another enemy with which to contend, for a peculiarly stifling vapour was arising, producing a sensation of giddiness, against which he could not battle; and as Hilary drew back from the approach of the tiny sea of waves of fire, pressing back, as he did so, the straw, he felt that unless he could reach the window he would be overcome.
There was no time for pause; help, if it were coming, could not reach him yet. In another instant he knew that the straw would catch fire. Even now a little rill of spirit had run to it, along which the flames were travelling, so, nerving himself for the effort, he made a dash to cross to the window.
At his first step the burning spirit splashed up in blue flames; at his second, the fire rose above his ankles; then, placing his foot upon a plate that had been left upon the floor, he slipped and fell headlong into the burning tongues that seemed to rise and lick him angrily.
The sensation was sharp to his hands, but not too pungent, and, fortunately, he kept his face from contact with the floor, while struggling up he for the moment lost his nerve, and felt ready to rush frantically about the place.
Fortunately, however, he mastered himself, and dashed at the window, leaped at the sill, and climbed up to breathe the pure cool air that was rushing in, just as the straw caught fire, blazed up furiously, and the place rapidly filled with rolling clouds of smoke.
He could not notice it, however, for the flames that fluttered about his garments where they were soaked with the spirit, and for some few minutes he thought of nothing but extinguishing the purply blaze.
They burned him but slightly, and in several places went out as the spirit became exhausted; but here and there the woollen material of his garments began to burn with a peculiar odour before he had extinguished the last spark.
Meanwhile, although the straw blazed furiously, and the smoke filled the place so that respiration would have been impossible, no help came. The spirit fluttered and danced as it burned, and save here and there where it lay in inequalities of the floor, it was nearly consumed, the danger now being from the straw, which still blazed.
Fortunately for Hilary, although he could feel the glow, his foresight in sweeping it to one corner saved him from being incommoded, and the heat caused a current of cool night-air to set in through the window and keep back the blinding and stifling fumes.
He listened, and could hear shouts in the distance; but no one came to his help, and he could not avoid feeling that if he had been dependent upon aid from without he must have lost his life. Fortunately for him, just at a time when his fate seemed sealed, the flames from the burning straw reached their height, and though they blackened the ceiling they did no worse harm, but exhausted from the want of supply they sank lower and lower. There was not a scrap of furniture in the place, or salient piece of wood to catch fire, and so as the spirit burned out, and the blazing straw settled down into some blackened sparkling ash, Hilary’s spirits rose, and with the reaction as he clung there by the window came a feeling of indignation.
“If I don’t be even with some of them for this!” he muttered. “They half starve me, and then try to burn me to death.”
“Yes, that’s right,” he cried. “Bravo, heroes! Come, now the danger’s over.”
For as he sat there he could hear hurrying feet, the rattle of a key in the chapel door, and shouts to him to come out.
The smoke was so dense that the fresh comers could not possibly see him where he sat in the window, and they cried to him again to come out.
“I sha’n’t come,” said Hilary to himself; “you’ll only lock me up somewhere else, and now I have found out as much as I have, perhaps I shall be better off where I am.”
“There’ll be a pretty noise about this when Sir Henry comes back,” cried a voice, which Hilary recognised as that of the ill-looking fellow Allstone. “You clumsy fool, dropping that keg!”
“It was as much you as me,” cried another. “I sha’n’t take all the blame.”
“The lad’s burned to death through your clumsiness,” continued Allstone.
“And a whole keg of the strongest brandy wasted,” said another dolefully.
“The place nearly burned down too,” said another.
“Here, go in somebody,” cried Allstone. “Perhaps he isn’t quite dead, and I suppose we must save him if we can. Do you hear? Go in some of you.”
“Who’s going in?” said another voice. “There’s smoke enough to choke you. Why don’t you go in yourself?”
“Because I tell you to go,” cried Allstone savagely. “I’m master here when the skipper’s away, and I’ll be obeyed. Go in, two of you, and fetch the boy out.”
“He don’t want no fetching out,” said one of the men, as the current of air that set from the window drove the smoke aside and revealed the dimly-seen figure of Hilary seated in the embrasure holding on to the iron bars. “He don’t want no help; there he sits.”
Allstone, who had been seized with a fit of coughing and choking from the effects of the blinding, pungent smoke, did not speak for a few moments, during which the smoke went on getting thinner and thinner, though, as the men had no lights, everything was still very obscure.
“Oh, you’re up there, are you?” cried Allstone at last. “Come down, sir; do you hear?” And he spoke as if he were addressing a disobedient dog; but Hilary remained perfectly silent, truth to say, almost speechless from indignation.
“What do you mean by pretending to be smothered and burned to death, hey?” cried the fellow again, roughly. “Why don’t you answer? Get down.”
“Out, bully!” cried Hilary angrily. “Why, you insolent dog, how dare you speak to a king’s officer like that? Why, you ugly, indecent-looking outrage upon humanity, you set fire to the place through your clumsiness, and then come and insult me for not being burned to death.”
“Haw! haw! haw!” laughed one of the men. “Well crowed, young gamecock.”
“You cowardly lubbers, why didn’t you come sooner to help me, instead of leaving me to frizzle here? I might have burned to death a dozen times for aught you cared.”
“Haw! haw! haw!” laughed a couple of the men now, to Allstone’s great annoyance.
“Hold your tongue, and come down, boy,” he cried. “You can’t stop there.”
“Be off and lock the door again, bully,” cried Hilary. “You great ugly, cowardly hound, if I had you on board the Kestrel, you should be triced up and have five dozen on your bare back.”
“Haw! haw! haw!” came in a regular chorus this time, for the danger was over.
“I’d like to look on while the crew of you were being talked to by the boatswain,” cried Hilary, angrily—“a set of cowardly loons.”
“That’ll do!” cried Allstone, who was hoarse with passion. “Go in and fetch him out.”
No one stirred, and Allstone went in himself, but only to be seized with a furious fit of coughing which lasted a couple of minutes or so, and to his companions’ intense delight.
The fit over, the fellow went in again and stood beneath the window.
“Come down!” he cried; but as Hilary did not condescend to notice him Allstone seized the young man by one of his legs, with the result that he clung with both hands to the iron bars, and raising up his knees for a moment, kicked out with as much cleverness as his friend the jackass, catching Allstone full in the chest and sending him staggering back for a few steps, where, unable to recover his balance, he went down heavily in a sitting position.
There was a roar of laughter from his companions, who stamped about, slapped their legs, and literally danced with delight; while, in spite of his anger and indignation at this scoundrel of a smuggler daring to touch a king’s officer, Hilary could not help feeling amused.
But matters looked tragic directly after instead of comic, for, uttering a fierce oath, the man sprang up, pulled out his cutlass and made at the prisoner.
Active as a leopard, Hilary sprang down to avoid him, when the pieces of the broken plate—the remains of that which had thrown the young officer down into the burning spirit—this time befriended him, for Allstone stepped upon a large fragment, slipped, fell sprawling, and the cutlass flew from his hand with a loud jangling noise in the far corner upon the stone floor.
Quick as lightning, and while the other men were roaring with laughter, Hilary dashed at the cutlass, picked it up, and, assuming now the part of aggressor, he turned upon Allstone, presenting the point of his weapon, and drove the ruffian before him out of the place, turning the next moment upon his companions, who offered not the slightest resistance, but retreated before him laughing with all their might.
Hilary was about to seize the opportunity to chase them onward through the passage and try to escape, but Allstone was too quick for him.
On being driven out the man had taken refuge behind the door, and as the last man of his companions passed he dashed it to, striking Hilary full and driving him backwards into the chapel, as it slammed against the post with a heavy echo, and was locked and bolted.
“Stop there, and starve and rot,” the ruffian cried through the keyhole furiously, as Hilary stood panting and shaking first one hand and then the other, against which the door, to the saving of his face, had come with tremendous force.
“We’ll see about that,” said Hilary to himself, as he gave the cutlass a flourish; and then, as the steps died down the passage and he heard the farther door close, with the steps of the men passing over the empty boarded room, he laughed at the change that had come over the scene during the last quarter of an hour.