Highway Pirates Part 16

However, the flesh of the bird, followed by a mince-pie, and an apple by way of dessert, certainly appeased our hunger, and in doing so enabled us to face our position with more fort.i.tude. Reclining on the hard rock as near as we could get to the smouldering fire, we went over the whole of our strange adventure from the moment the convicts had seized the coach to the time they had left us in the boat.

"We might be worse off," said George. "I believe that if they'd tied us up in that copse, as that rascal Rodwood suggested, we should have been frozen stiff by morning. I wonder how poor Tom got on! That was a nasty fall of his; I heard his head strike on the hard ground, and I made sure he'd be picked up dead. Them warders, too--I hope the warmth of the straw and the shelter of the cottage kept them alive."

"I believe those villains would have killed any one who had tried to stop them," I remarked. "Do you remember that fellow close to me digging out that stone with his fingers in the pit on the cliff, when the sheep made that false alarm? The way he did it made me tremble. I believe he'd have brained some one with it if we really had been surrounded."

"Well, the whole lot of them are taken by this time, dead or alive; at least that's my belief," answered George. "They were crazy with drink, and would walk straight into the net. That man we heard gallop into the village last night may have given the alarm, and I'll wager there's been a hue and cry and a sharp lookout all to-day. As long as the sea don't prevent it, we shall have a boat sent here for us to-morrow, and then a fine story you'll have to tell the folks at home, and the boys at school next term, Master Sylvester!"

His last remark, though intended to cheer me up, had rather the opposite effect. I must confess that, up to the present, I had been so much concerned with my own personal safety as to give hardly a thought to the friends at home, and to the anxiety which my father and mother must be now feeling at my non-arrival; for by this time the news would no doubt have reached them of the disappearance of the coach. In those days there were no telegraph wires by means of which messages could be sent and replies received in the course of at most a few hours. A messenger had probably been dispatched on horseback to Round Green, to learn whether I had travelled by the ill-fated True Blue; but he would probably not return to Castlefield till late that night. And even now, as I sat blinking at the glowing logs, my parents would be in a state of anxious uncertainty as to whether I was really missing, or had been detained for some reason at the school.

George did not notice my silence, but went on, following up his own line of thought.

"I believe there's been a boat out to-day spying down the coast, and 'twas that the blind fellow heard when he talked about distant voices.

My stars! it gave me quite a turn for the minute. I almost thought it was ghosts, and so did some of the rest, I suppose, by the scared look on their faces. You didn't hear nothing, I suppose, did you, Master Eden?"

"No," I replied. "But I hardly expected to; for I've got a bit of a cold in my head, and it's made me rather deaf."

"It was a queer thing," murmured George. "That man had such sharp ears I don't think 'twas fancy; and if not, then what could it have been, I wonder?"

"The dog didn't seem to notice it," I answered, "and a dog can hear better than a man. I dare say it was the water gurgling in some hole or hollow, and it may have sounded like a voice."

How endless seemed that long December night! The cold did not appear to be so intense, but I was less weary than on the previous evening, and less inclined for sleep. Every now and again Woodley would raise himself on his elbow to readjust the smouldering logs; and we would speculate as to what could be the time, for the man had forgotten to wind his watch the night before, and it had run down. We cheered each other with the a.s.sertion that the people in Rockymouth must know now of our whereabouts, and that when day dawned we should be rescued. At length we must both have fallen into an uneasy slumber, and when I recovered consciousness the mouth of the cavern was showing like a distant window in the pale gray light of morning. Rising, and stretching our stiffened limbs, we stirred up the fire, and slapped our arms across our b.r.e.a.s.t.s to restore the circulation. To my joy I noticed that the sea was calmer; the wind had dropped, and what waves there were outside reached our platform in little more than gentle ripples.

"They won't be long fetching us now," said George. "I wonder how far those rascals got before they were collared? Not much farther than the pierhead, I fancy. The villains, sending the old _True Blue_ over the cliffs like a worthless piece of rock! I hope they'll get a sound flogging for it, every man Jack of 'em, when they get aboard the hulk.

I'd like to give it 'em myself!"

We stood watching the light strengthen in the entrance to the cave, momentarily expecting to see the aperture darkened by the prow of a boat, and prepared to give a simultaneous hail with all the force of our voices.

"Well, some of those lazy dogs of villagers might have been up and about by this time," grumbled George. "I know I would if it were a case of rescuing fellow-creatures in distress. They needn't have waited for dawn; I'll warrant there's some of them could have guided a boat in here with a lamp if there'd been a cargo of brandy kegs to be fetched, instead of two human beings!"

"Perhaps they don't know we're here," I suggested, rather reluctantly.

"Of course they do," answered George, who had fully made up his mind on the subject. "That gang of rascals must have been caught yesterday.

How could it have been otherwise when most of them were too drunk to walk, let alone run? That being the case, for their own sakes they'd be ready enough to say what had become of us. They'll be held responsible for our safety, and it would go hard with them if--if we weren't found."

"But they might have got into hiding, and be waiting to get on board some vessel."

"Not they! The harbour was empty when we got into the boat--I noticed that; so there was no craft lying alongside the wharf which would take them on board, we'll say, and stow them down in the hold. No; they'd have to go ash.o.r.e. It's risky enough for men who know their way about to beach a boat along this coast among the rocks and breakers, and especially after dark; and the only chance for these fellows would be to make the harbour and land on the quay. Bless you, they were too reckless and fuddled to think of the chances of being caught. They've all been nabbed safe enough, and had time by now to cool their heads and remember whom they left behind. We shall be taken off directly, and in the meanwhile I don't see why we shouldn't have breakfast."

I sat down readily enough, and ate my share of what was left of the pheasant, and a small wedge of cheese, was.h.i.+ng down the repast with a draught of the fresh water in the broken bottle. Still there was no sign of the relief party, for the arrival of which we kept a constant lookout, and I thought I noticed an uneasy look on Woodley's face, which did not tend to allay my own misgivings.

Growing restless at this delay, we longed to be doing something, and at length decided to try to secure some more pieces of the floating wreckage. George was the first to rise to his feet, and as he did so he exclaimed,--

"Hullo! here's a find!"

Lying on the ledge of rock where Rodwood had left it on the previous evening was the warder's pistol. My companion examined it, and finding that it was loaded and primed, clambered up and put it in a niche of the rock high above his head, remarking as he did so,--

"There, that's safer than letting it lie about on the ground. A chance kick might send it off, and one of us get the ball in his foot."

The set of the current seemed to have drifted more wreckage into the cavern, and the flowing tide had brought a quant.i.ty of it close to the extreme end of the cave, where it floated in a jumbled ma.s.s at the foot of our platform. By clambering down to the water's edge and "fis.h.i.+ng"

with another broken spar, we had no difficulty in drawing it towards us and then throwing it up to the rock above. One piece of timber which seemed a portion of a mast had a quant.i.ty of rope attached to it, and a couple of blocks with more cordage were also secured. At length my eye rested on another of those mischievous kegs, but this one apparently half or wholly empty, judging from the manner in which the greater portion of it appeared above the surface of the water.

"There's another of those little barrels," I said to George, half jestingly. "Haul it out, and we'll use it as our water-b.u.t.t."

The keg was accordingly fished out of the sea, and added to our little pile of salvage. One or two more small fragments of wood were next recovered; then George pointed to a long, slender spar which I had already noticed, but which was floating close to the opposite wall of the cavern, and beyond our reach.

"That looks like an oar, Master Eden," he said. "We'll get that somehow. I think I can manage it with a line and slip-knot made out of some of that rope."

It did not take long for this simple tackle to be prepared, and with its aid George soon secured the oar, and handed it up to me as I stood above him on the rock. He pa.s.sed it up, I say, blade first, and I remember, as I caught hold of it, having given a sudden cry, almost as though the wood had been red-hot iron.

"What's the matter?" shouted the astonished guard.

"O George, look here!--look at this!"

With a bound Woodley was at my side; but even then he could not guess the reason for my outcry. There was, after all, little for him to see--merely a letter "L" branded into the water-worn surface of the wood.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

"Matter!" I cried. "Don't you see that mark? This is one of the oars from Lewis's boat. O Woodley! can't you guess what's happened? She's capsized, and all those drunken rascals are drowned. I remember now there was a yell as they pa.s.sed out of the cave, and then silence. I thought they'd gone beyond our hearing, but when they got into the swirl of the backwash at the foot of the cliffs they must have overturned. Lewis himself told me how dangerous it was. It would have been a difficult thing for a sober and experienced crew to get safely out to sea, but with the first bad lurch those madmen would have flung themselves about, and lost their balance in no time."

"It can't have been that," said George, who stood aghast at my suggestion. "Ten men drowned within fifty yards of us, and we none the wiser! No, no, Master Eden; I won't believe it."

"You forget they were all of them drunk," I answered. "Even if any of them had floated for a moment, we weren't likely to hear their stifled cries right back here, and above the noise the wash of the sea was making."

"How d'you know that oar came out of the boat? Its being marked with an 'L' is no proof that it belonged to Lewis."

"You forget I went out in his boat several times last summer, and learned to row. I remember the oar as well as if it was my own; it's got a smaller 'L' carved with a knife just below the b.u.t.ton. There, see for yourself."

Still George stood staring at me as though unwilling to be convinced that the worst had happened.

"Look at that keg," I continued, "and see if it isn't the one they took with them in the boat. If so, you'll find the small hole they made with your knife."

On examination, the spot where the convicts had broached the anker was clearly visible. There could no longer be any doubt as to how it came to be floating on the water.

"Some of them must have got to land," muttered George doggedly.

"Not they!" I replied; "there wasn't a man of them could swim. Don't you remember what Rodwood said? I know Lewis couldn't, because he told us so last summer; and we remarked at the time how strange it was he had never learned, when he had spent most of his life on the water.

Besides, what difference does it make to a man whether he can swim or not, if he's flung into the water stupefied with drink?"

The oar dropped from my hands as I spoke, and for some minutes each stood staring blankly in the other's face. That short s.p.a.ce of silence did as much as an hour's feverish discussion of the subject to impress upon our minds how hazardous and almost hopeless our position had now become. No gloomy underground dungeon in some ancient prison, made secure by locks and bolts and watchful jailers, could have afforded less chance of escape than in our case did this cavern; for even if a boat had been waiting close outside, as neither of us could swim, there was enough deep water between us and the suns.h.i.+ne to drown us twenty times over. It was probable that even the smugglers only entered the cave on rare occasions, for too frequent visits would draw attention to the spot; and especially at this time of the year, close on Christmas, the chances were a thousand to one against any boat coming near the place till we had either died of starvation or been washed away in one of the fierce storms which raged constantly during the winter months.

With the loss of the boat and its occupants all chance of communication with the outer world was ended; and if we had been marooned on an island or coral reef in the Pacific, far out of the usual track of s.h.i.+ps, there could hardly have been less prospect of a timely rescue.

Though all these thoughts flashed through our minds, we neither of us seemed willing to put them into words; both shrank from being the first to p.r.o.nounce the sentence of our doom. George Woodley at length broke the silence, and he did so in a voice the tone of which betrayed strong emotion.

"This is a bad lookout for us, Master Eden," he said. "What are we to do?"

"We must portion out the food," I answered, "and make it last as long as possible. There's the other pheasant, and the hare, two or three mince-pies, and a few apples, and part of the cheese. With that we ought to keep from starving a few days longer."

George shook his head, as if to imply that it would be only lengthening the agony of our suspense; and for a time we remained doing nothing but listlessly watching the sparkling patch of sea beyond the mouth of the cavern, in the vague hope that some boat would pa.s.s within hail. Owing to the fact that the entrance arch was low, and our platform was raised some distance above the water level, our view of the outside world was very limited, and unless a boat had come close in to the foot of the cliff we could not have seen her.