Chapter 28

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_ CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

The next morning, as it seemed from the beautiful limpid appearance of dawn that rose from the surface of the waters, to become diffused in the soft gloom overhead, the lads lit a candle and set off manfully to try as to the possibility of making their way out through the zigzag passage, Aleck trying first and dragging and pushing at the stones which blocked his way, till, utterly exhausted and dripping with perspiration, he made way for his comrade to have a try.

The latter toiled hard in turn, and did not desist till he found that his fingers were bleeding and growing painful.

"It's of no good," he said, gloomily; "that scoundrel has done his work too well. Let's get down to where we can breathe. I say, though," he added, cheerily, "I've learned one thing."

"What?" asked Aleck.

"That I was never cut out for a chimney-sweep. This is bad enough; I don't know what it would be if there was the soot."

They slid down, and as soon as they were back in the comparatively cheerful cavern, where they could breathe freely, Aleck proposed that they should look out amongst the sails and ships' stores for a suitable rope for their purpose.

There was coil upon coil of rope, but for the most part they were too thick, and it seemed as if they would be reduced to venturing upon their dive untrammelled, when, raising the lanthorn for another glance round, Aleck caught sight of the very piece he required, hanging from a wooden peg driven in between two blocks of stone.

"Looks old and worn," said the middy, passing the frayed line through his fingers. "Let's try it."

The means adopted was to tie one end round a projection of the rocky side, run the line out to its full length, and then drag and jerk it together with all their might.

Satisfied with the effects of this test, the rope was untied, the other end made fast, and the dragging and snatching repeated without the tough fibres of the hemp yielding in the least.

"Looks very old," said the middy, "but wear has only made it soft. If it stands all that tugging with the weight of both of us on the end it will bear one of us being dragged through the water, where one isn't so heavy. Now, then, are we going to try this way?"

"Certainly," said Aleck.

"Very well; who's to go first?"

"I will," said Aleck.

"I don't know about that," replied the middy. "You're only a shore-going fellow, while I'm a sailor. I think I ought to go first."

"It doesn't much matter who goes first, but I spoke first and I'll go."

"Look here," cried the middy; "if I give way and let you have first try, will you play fair?"

"Of course. But what do you mean?"

"You won't brag and chuck it in my face afterwards that you got us out of the hole?"

"Do you think I should be such a donkey?" cried Aleck. "Why, look here, I'm going to try and chance it, but I don't believe I shall get through. Never mind about who's to be first. Let's do all we can to make sure of escaping. Now, then, shall we try now, or wait till the water's at its lowest? It's going down now."

"If we wait till the tide's at its lowest it will be slack water, and we shall get no help. It's running out now, and we can see the shape of the arch."

"Yes, and how rugged and weed-hung it is. I say, I don't like the look of it. You'd better go first."

"Very well," said the middy, promptly, and he began taking off his jacket.

"Hold hard," cried Aleck, hurriedly stripping off his own. "Come along."

He led the way to the edge of the water where, though not the nearest, the best leap off seemed to present itself, and then stood perfectly still, gazing down into the softly illuminated water, quivering and wreathing as it ran softly out, and looking dim and blurred through being kept so much in motion by the retiring waves.

"Then you still mean to go?" said the middy.

"Of course. But what shall I do--strip, or try in my clothes?"

"Strip, decidedly," cried the middy.

"I shall get scratched and scraped going under the rocks."

"You'll get caught by them and hung up if you keep your clothes on. Have 'em all off, man; you'll slip through the water then like a seal."

"Yes," said Aleck, calmly, "I suppose it will be best."

It did not take him long to prepare, and as soon as he was ready his companion made the rope fast just round beneath the arm-pits with a knot that would neither slip nor tighten.

"There!" said the middy, as he finished his preparations by laying out the rope in rings and curves of various shapes, such as would easily run out. "I say, you are perfectly black when I look at you from behind, but in front you seem like a white image on a black ground. Now, then, what do you mean to do?"

"Dive in from here and try to keep right down and swim as deeply as I can for the mouth."

"Try to swallow the job at one mouthful?"

"Yes."

"Won't do," said the middy, authoritatively. "You couldn't do it. You must slip in gently here and swim to that rock that's just out of the water."

"What! That one that seems just to the left of the arch?"

"That's the one. Get out on it, wait a few moments, and then take a long, deep breath and dive."

Aleck pondered for a few moments.

"Yes," he said, "I think you're right. I should have had to swim so far first if I started from here."

"To be sure you would. The less diving you have the better."

"I see," said Aleck. "Now, then, let the rope run out easily through your fingers till I give it a sharp jerk. That means pull me back as fast as you can."

"Yes, because you can go no further."

"If I pull twice it means I am safe through, and then--"

"I shall tie my end of the rope round my chest and come too. You need not pull, only just draw in the line, unless it stops, because that would mean I had got into difficulties. Do we both understand? I do."

"So do I," said Aleck, "so let's get it over. If I wait much longer I shall be afraid to go."

"Don't believe you," said the middy, bluntly. "Now, then--ready?"

"Yes."

The word was no sooner uttered than Aleck slipped down into the water and began to swim, with the rope being carefully paid out by his comrade, and in a minute he was fairly started. He was at first invisible, but very soon began to look like a black object making its way over a surface that grew transparent.

Then all at once the rope ceased to run.

"What is it?" cried the middy, anxiously.

"Got to the rock."

"Is the water deep?"

"Very."

"Well, get up, ready for your dive."

"It's all seaweed, and horribly slippery."

"Never mind; up with you."

A peculiar splashing sound arose, and the middy could just make out the dim shape of his companion climbing, or rather dragging, himself on to the slimy rock, whose top was about a foot above the surface of the water.

"Stop a minute or two first," said the middy, "so as to take--"

He was going to say "breath," but before the word could be uttered Aleck, who had drawn himself up to stand erect, felt his feet gliding from under him, and it was only by a violent effort that he escaped falling heavily upon the weed-covered rock. As it was he came down with a tremendous splash into the water, going head first in a sharp incline down and down, while, obeying his first impulse, he struck out sharply.

The middy was about to obey his first impulse too, and that was not to pay out, but begin to haul his comrade back. His hands tightened round the line, but as he awoke to the fact that it was gliding through his hands in obedience to the regular pulsation of the movements of a swimmer, he felt that all must be right, and waited while, foot by foot, the rope glided on and the transparent water grew more and more agitated and strange to see.

Once he fancied he could clearly make out Aleck's steadily swimming figure, but directly after he knew it was a great, waving, flag-like mass of weed fronds, and he uttered an impatient gasp and turned cold.

"He couldn't have got his breath for the dive," he said to himself, "and the current must be taking him helplessly away. Half the line must have run out, and perhaps he's insensible. No; that means swimming, for it goes in jerks, and--he has stopped. He must be through. Hooray! Well done, old--oh, that's the signal to pull him back!"

It was surely enough, and the middy began at once to haul in, and then the cold feeling became a chill of horror, for he had drawn the rope quite tight at the second haul, and it was perfectly evident that the swimmer had signalled because in some way he was caught fast.

What to do?

The middy was energetic enough, and in those perilous moments, full of horror for his companion's sake, he hauled till he dared pull no more for fear that the rope should part, and, obeying now a sudden thought, he relaxed the strain, and the rope seemed to be snatched back towards Aleck.

"That can't be a signal," he said to himself, in despair; but he began to haul again, recovered the line lost, and to his intense delight he found that the swimmer was once more free, and that he was drawing him rapidly back to where he stood. The lad's action was as rapid now as he could pass hand over hand, and in a very short space of time he had the poor fellow close up to the rock edge, and then, taking hold of the rope where it passed round Aleck's chest, he dragged him out, half insensible, upon the rocks.

Another half minute or so might have been fatal, but Aleck had some little energy left, and, after a strangling fit of coughing, he was able to sit up.

"Take--the rope off!" he panted.

This was done, and in a few minutes he was breathing freely and able to talk.

"I didn't get a fair start," he said, hoarsely. "I slipped, and went in before I was ready; but I got on all right for a bit till I seemed to be sucked in between two pieces of rock, and felt myself going into black darkness. Then I signalled to you."

"I hauled directly."

"Yes, and it seemed to drag me crosswise so that I couldn't pass through between the two rocks again. How did you manage then?"

"I did nothing, only let go so as to make a fresh start."

"Did you?" said Aleck, quietly. "Ah, I didn't know anything about that. I only knew that it was very horrible, and I thought it was all over. It was very near, wasn't it?"

"Oh, I don't know," said the middy, coolly. "You say that you didn't have a fair start?"

"No; it was that fall. But it's queer work. You can't make out where you are going, and the current grinds your head up against the weedy rock."

"But you got nearly through, didn't you?"

"I suppose so, but I don't know. It was all one horrible confusion."

"Yes; but another few yards, I expect, and you would have been safe, and could have pulled me through, or helped me as I swam."

"Perhaps," said Aleck, rather slowly, for he felt confused still. "But what are you doing?"

"Peeling off my clothes."

"What for?" said Aleck, speaking now with more animation.

"To do my turn, and see how I get on."

"No, no, no!" cried Aleck, excitedly. "You mustn't try. It's too horrible."

"Horrible? Nonsense. It's only a swim in the dark. I like diving."

"I tell you it can't be done, sailor," cried Aleck, angrily. "The risk is too great. I should have been drowned if you had not hauled me out."

"Well, and if I'm going to be drowned you'll haul me out. You're strong enough now, aren't you?"

"Oh, yes; but you mustn't risk it."

"You wait till I get these things off, my lad, and I'll show you. Why, you'd have done it splendidly if you had dived off the rock instead of going in flip-flap like a sole out of a basket. I'll show you how to do it."

"You'd better take my word for it that it can't be done. Let's wait till the tide's low enough, and then swim out in daylight."

"You wait till I get out of my uniform," said the middy, stubbornly, "I'll show you, my fine fellow. I've practised diving a good deal. Some day, if we get to the right place in the ocean, I mean to have a go down with the sponge divers, and if I'm ever in the South Seas I mean to try diving for pearl shell."

"Well," said Aleck, rather sadly, "I've warned you, and I suppose it is of no use for me to say any more?"

"Not a bit," said the middy, dragging off his second stocking. "You make fast the dry end of the line round my noble chest. Not too tight, mind, and a knot that won't slip."

The young sailor possessed the greater will power now, for Aleck was yet half stunned by what he had gone through. He obeyed every order he received, and carefully knotted on the rope.

"Now, are you ready?" said the middy. "Feel up to hauling me back if I don't get through?"

"Yes."

"And, mind, when I am through I shall not drag you. No, no, don't untie your end of the rope; you'll want that. Now, do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Very well, then, as soon as I'm through I shall get on a dry rock and signal to you to come. Then you'll slip in and swim to the rock again, and take a header off it. Don't bungle it this time, and when you feel my touch at the rope, mind it's not meant to haul, only to guide you to where I'm sitting."

"But what about our clothes?" said Aleck, drearily.

"Bother our clothes! We want to save our skins and not our clothes. Now, then, ready?"

"Yes, if you will go."

"Will go? Look here!"

The lad sprang, feet foremost, into the water, and rose directly from out of the depths, to strike out, and as Aleck tried hard to follow his movements, he heard him reach the weedy rock, drag himself out, and the rope was gently drawn more and more through his hands as the middy succeeded in getting erect upon the stone, close to its edge.

"See that?" he shouted.

"Yes."

"That's what you ought to have done. Now, then, slacken the line well. I'm taking a long, deep breath, ready for you know what. That's it. Ready--ho!"

The middy sprang into the air, and very dimly Aleck saw that he curved himself over, and the next moment his hands divided the water, and he plunged in for his dive almost without a splash, while as the rope ran swiftly through his hands Aleck felt a flash of energy run through him, and stood ready for any emergency that might befall.

Then a feeling akin to jealousy came over him, as he found the rope drawn out vigorously, and it seemed to him that the midshipman was a far better swimmer and diver than he.

"But he hasn't come to the difficult part yet," he thought, the next moment. "He'll find that he can't keep down deep, and that while he is trying to beat the tangling wrack to right and left something like a current sucks him upward and forces him against the rocks that form the arch."

Then, full of eagerness so as to be ready to help the diver when his time of extremity came, Aleck held the rope attached to him with both hands gingerly enough to let it pass easily through as wanted, but at the same time, in the most guarded way, ready to let it fall against his right shoulder when, as he intended, he turned sharply to walk swiftly back into the interior of the cavern and draw his companion back to the water's edge.

Then a curious thought struck him, consequent upon the rope beginning to run out faster and faster.

"Why, he's getting through," he cried, mentally, with a suggestion of disappointment in his brain at his comrade's better success. "He's getting through, and he'll run out all the line quickly now and draw me in.

"Well, so much the better," he thought. "If he can pass through I can, and perhaps in a few moments we shall both have escaped.

"Wish I'd done something about our clothes," he muttered then. "We shall want them, of course. But, I know; we can hide somewhere about the mouth of the cave till it gets dark, and then I can take him up to the Den, and--"

Aleck did not finish the plan he was thinking out, for the rope had seemed to him to be running out to a far greater extent than he had taken it himself; but in reality it had gone away at about the same rate, so that something like the same quantity had been drawn through his hands when it suddenly ceased to glide, and directly after a spasm shot through the lad's brain, for it had stopped, and directly after the signal was given sharply, sending a thrill through him.

He responded directly by clutching the rope tightly and beginning to run.

It was only a beginning, for he was brought up short on the instant, and so sharply that he was jerked backwards.

"Just the same as I must have been," he said to himself, excitedly, after bearing hard against the rope and finding it quite fast. "It's like conger fishing," he thought, "and I must give him line."

Slackening out at once, he waited for a moment or two, and then tightened again, when to his great delight he found that he was no longer dragging at something set hard, but at a yielding body, which he drew easily to the edge of the pool by means of his long coil, before dropping it and running to seize and repeat the middy's performance upon himself.

"He's quite insensible," he gasped, as he drew the dripping lad right out on to the driest part.

"That I'm not," panted the middy; "but another minute would have done it."

He remained silent then, panting hard and struggling to recover his breath, while Aleck untied the line and set his chest at liberty to act as it should.

Then for some minutes nothing was said, the only sound heard being the middy's hoarse breathing as he laboured hard to recover his regular inspirations.

At last he spoke in an unpleasantly harsh, ill-humoured way.

"Well, aren't you going to have another try? It's lovely. Only wants plenty of perseverance."

"Not I," replied Aleck. "You don't seem to have got on so very well."

"Got on as well as you did," snarled the middy. "Ugh! It was horrid. Just as if, when I felt that I could hold my breath no longer, I was suddenly seized and sucked into a great sink-hole, only the water was running up instead of down."

"Yes, that's just how I felt," said Aleck.

"You couldn't have felt so bad as I did," said the lad, irritably and speaking in the most inconsistent way. "I got my head rasped, too, against the stones overhead, and it's bleeding fast. Look at it, will you?"

Aleck examined the place, after opening the door of the lanthorn.

"It isn't bleeding," he said.

"Don't talk nonsense," cried the middy, irritably. "It smarts horribly, and I can feel the blood trickling down the back of my neck."

"That's water out of your hair."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, certain. I can't even see a mark on your head."

"Well, there ought to be," grumbled the lad. "Aren't you going to have another try?"

"No. Are you?"

"Not if I know it," replied the middy. "Once is quite enough for a trip of that kind."

"I don't think it's possible to get out by swimming."

"Well, it doesn't seem like it; but the smugglers get in."

"Yes, at certain times."

"Then this is an uncertain time, I suppose!" said the middy, beginning to dress.

"Hadn't we better get round and have a good rub with a bit of sail?" asked Aleck.

"No; we can't carry our clothes without getting them wet, and if we don't take them it means coming all the way round here again. Let's dress as we are; the salt water will soon dry."

"Very well," said Aleck, and he followed his companion's example with much satisfaction to his feelings, listening the while to the middy's plaints and grumblings, for he had been under water long enough to make him feel something like resuscitated people, exceedingly discontented and ill-humoured.

Every now and then he burst out with some disagreeable remark. One minute it was against his shirt for sticking to his wet back; another time it was at Aleck for getting on so fast with his dressing consequent upon his being drier; and then he began to abuse Eben Megg.

"A beast; that's what he is. It's just as bad as murdering us with a knife or chopper, that it is."

They were dressed at something like the same time, Aleck having achieved his task quietly, the middy with a sort of accompaniment of grumbles and unpleasant remarks.

"There," he said, at last; "that seems to have done me a lot of good. There's nothing like a good growl."

"Got rid of a lot of ill temper, eh?" said Aleck, smiling to himself.

"Yes, I suppose that's it. But, I say, we're not going to try that way out again! I say it's perfectly impossible."

"So do I," said Aleck.

"We should both have been drowned if it hadn't been for the rope."

"That we should, for a certainty," replied Aleck. "Well, there's nothing to be done but to wait patiently for the coming of that low tide when a boat could come in, as Eben Megg said, and as it's plain it does, or else all these stores couldn't have been brought in."

"And when it does come?" said the middy.

"We shall swim or wade out, of course," said Aleck.

"No, we shan't," grumbled the middy. "You see if it doesn't come in the night, when we're asleep."

"We must be too much on the look-out for that," said Aleck.

"It will not come all at once, but by degrees--lower and lower tides, till we get the one we want; and till then we shall have to be patient."

"Hark at him!" said the midshipman. "Who's to be patient at a time like this? Well, I'm beginning to feel warm and dry again; what do you say to getting back and having dinner, or whatever you like to call it? Oh, dear! Eating and drinking's bad enough on ship board, but it's all feasts and banquets compared to this."

"We must try to improve it," said Aleck. "I don't see why we shouldn't be able to catch fish."

"What? You don't suppose fish would be such scaly idiots as to come into a hole like this?"

"Perhaps not, but I believe they'd be shelly idiots enough. I shouldn't be a bit surprised, if we had a lobster or crab pot thrown out here, if we caught some fine ones."

"Set one, then," said the midshipman, sourly. "Perhaps there is one."

"Not likely," replied Aleck. "Never mind, let's make the best of what we've got and be thankful."

"No, that I won't," cried his companion. "I'll make the best of what we've got as much as you like, but I must draw the line somewhere--I won't be thankful."

"I will," said Aleck, good-temperedly; "thankful enough for both."

"Come on," said the midshipman, gruffly.

"Wait a moment till I've coiled up the line loosely. We may want it, and it must be hung up to dry."

This was done, and then after noting that the water was growing deeper in the direction of the sea entrance, the pair made their way right round by the head, stopped at the spring to have a hearty drink, and then pressed on, lanthorn in hand, to their resting-place, where, thoroughly upset by his adventure, the midshipman grumbled at everything till Aleck burst into a hearty laugh.

"Hallo!" cried his companion, eagerly; "let's have it. Got a bright idea as to how to get out?"

"No," said Aleck, "I was laughing at the comic way in which you keep on finding fault."

"Humph! Well, I have been going it rather, haven't I?"

"Doing nothing else but growl."

"That's the worst of having a nasty temper. Don't do a bit of good either, does it?"

"Not a bit," said Aleck. "Makes things still worse."

"Think so?"

Aleck nodded.

"Yes, I suppose you're right. I'll drop it then. Now, then, what do you say to having a good long snooze?"

"I'm willing," said Aleck, "for I'm thoroughly tired out."

"Put out the light then. My word, what a good thing sleep is!" said the midshipman, after they had lain in silence for a few minutes. "Makes you able to forget all your troubles."

There was a pause, and then the midshipman began:

"I say it makes you able to forget all your troubles, doesn't it?"

Still silence.

"Don't you hear what I say?"

No answer.

"Hanged if he isn't asleep! How a fellow can be such a dormouse-headed animal at a time like this I don't know."

He ought to have known, a minute later, for he was lying upon his back, fast asleep and breathing hard, dreaming of all kinds of pleasant things, some of which had to do with being feasted after getting free. _

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