In the King's Name Part 9

For just then he felt a rope was pa.s.sed round him, and a slip-knot drawn tight under his arms. Then there was a sudden s.n.a.t.c.h, and he was raised upon his feet, steadied for a moment by a pair of hands, the rope tightened more and more, and he felt himself being drawn up, rising through the air, and slowly turning round, one elbow rasping gently against the rock from time to time.

"Well, I'm learning some of their secrets," thought Hilary, "even if they are keeping me in the dark. This is either the way up to their place, or else it's the way they get up their cargoes."

"Yes, cargoes only," he said directly, as he heard indistinctly a gruff voice at his elbow, some one being evidently climbing up at his side.

"I hope they won't drop me."

In another minute he was dragged sidewise and lowered on to the rock, a change he gladly welcomed, for the rope had hurt him intolerably, and seemed to compress his chest so that he could hardly breathe.

"Well, this is pleasant," he thought, as he bit his lip with vexation.

"The lads will have a good hunt for me, find nothing, and then go back and tell Lips...o...b... He will lie on and off for an hour or two, and then go and report that I have deserted or gone off for a game, or some other pleasant thing. Oh, hang it all! this won't do. I must escape somehow.

I wish they'd take off this cloak."

That seemed to be about the last thing his captors were disposed to do, for after he had been lying there in a most painfully uncomfortable position for quite an hour, every effort to obtain relief being met with a kick, save one, when he felt the cold ring of a pistol muzzle pressed against his neck under the cloak, he was lifted by the head and heels, some one else put an arm round him, and he was carried over some rugged ground, lifted up higher, and then his heart seemed to stand still, for he felt that he was going to be allowed to fall, and if allowed to fall it would be, he thought, from the top of the cliff.

The feeling was terrible, but the fall ridiculous, for it was a distance of a foot on to some straw. Then he felt straw thrown over him--a good heap--and directly after there was a jolting sensation, and he knew he was in a cart on a very rugged road. The sound of blows came dull upon his ear, and a faint hoa.r.s.e "Go on!" And in spite of his pain, misery, and the ignorance he was in respecting his fate, Hilary Leigh began to laugh with all the light-heartedness of a lad, as he mentally said:

"Oh, this is too absurd! I'm in a donkey-cart, and the fellow who is driving can't make the brute go."

CHAPTER EIGHT.

LIEUTENANT LIPs...o...b.. LAYS DOWN THE LAW.

"Say, lads, I'm getting tired of this here," said Tom Tully, bringing himself to an anchor on a patch of sand; "I'm as hot as I am dry.

Where's our orsifer?"

"I d'no," said another. "Ahoy! Billy Waters, ahoy-y-y!"

"Ahoy!" came from amongst the rocks; and the gunner plodded up wiping his face, and another of the little party came at the same time from the other direction.

"Where's Muster Leigh?" said Tom Tully.

"Isn't he along of you?" said Waters.

"No, I ar'n't seen him for ever so long."

Notes were compared, as the hailing brought the rest of the party together, and it was agreed on all sides that Hilary had gone in amongst the rocks close by where they were standing.

"I know how it is," growled Tom Tully, "he's having a caulk under the lee of one of these here stones while we do all the hunting about; and I can't walk half so well as I used, after being shut up aboard that there little cutter."

"Oh, no, he wouldn't go to sleep," said the gunner. "He's close here somewhere. I hope he's had better luck than we, for I ar'n't found nothing; have you?"

"No, no," arose on all sides.

"Why, there ain't nothin' to find," growled Tom Tully. "I wish I was aboard. You're chief orsifer when he ar'n't here, Billy Waters. Give the order and let's go back."

"What, without Mr Leigh?" said the gunner; "that's a likely tale, that is. Here, come on lads, and let's find him. Ahoy!"

"Ahoy!" came back from the rocks.

"There he is," said one of the men.

"No, my lads, that's only the ecker," said Billy Waters. "Hark ye-- Ahoy!"

"Ahoy!" came back directly.

"Hoy--hoy--hoy-y-y!" shouted the gunner again.

"Hoy--hoy-y-y!" came back.

"Mis' Leigh, ahoy!" roared the gunner.

"Leigh--hoy!" was the response.

"Told you so, my lads; he ar'n't about here. Let's go further on. Now then, Tom Tully, we must have off some o' that there tail if it's so heavy it keeps you anch.o.r.ed down. Get up, will you?"

The sailor got up unwillingly, and in obedience to the gunner's orders they began now, in place of searching for traces of the smugglers, to look for their missing officer, scattering along, as fate had it, farther and farther from the spot where he had disappeared, no one seeing a face watching them intently through the thin wiry strands of a tuft of gra.s.s growing close up under the cliff.

The heat was now intense, for the sun seemed to be reflected back from the face of the rocks, and the men were regularly f.a.gged.

They shouted and waited, and shouted again, but the only answer they got was from the echoes; and at last they stood together in a knot, with Billy Waters scratching his head with all his might, and they were a good half mile now from where Hilary had made his discovery and stepped into a trap.

"Well, this here _is_ a rummy go," exclaimed the gunner, after looking from face to face for the counsel that there was not. "Let's see, my lads; it was just about here as he went forrard, warn't it?"

"No," growled Tom Tully; "it were a good two-score fathom more to the east'ard."

"Nay, nay, lad; it were a couple o' cables' length doo west," said another.

"I think it were 'bout here," said Tom Tully; "but I can't find that there track o' the boat's keel now. What's going to be done?"

"Let's go aboard again," growled Tom Tully. "I'm 'bout sick o' this here, mates."

"But I tell yer we can't go aboard without our orsifer," cried the gunner. "'Taint likely."

"He'd go aboard without one of us," growled Tom Tully, "so where's the difference?"

"There's lots o' difference, my lad. We can't go aboard without him.

But where is he?"

"Having a caulk somewhere," said Tully gruffly; "and I on'y wish I were doing of that same myself. If we stop here much longer we shall be cooked like herrings. It's as hot as hot."

"I tell you he wouldn't desert us and go to sleep," said the gunner stubbornly. "Mr Leigh's a lad as would stick to his men like pitch to a ball o' oak.u.m."

"Then why don't he?" growled Tom Tully in an ill-used tone. "What does he go and sail away from conwoy for?"

"He couldn't have got up the cliffs," mused the gunner; "'cause there don't seem to be no way, and he couldn't have gone more to west'ard, 'cause we must have seen him. There ain't been no boats along sh.o.r.e, and he can't have gone back to the cutter. I say, my lads, we've been and gone and got ourselves into a reg'lar mess. What's the skipper going to say when he sees us? You see we can't tell him as the youngster's fell overboard."

"No," growled Tom Tully; "'cause there ar'n't no overboard for him to fall. I'm right, I know; he's having a caulk."