Part 13 (2/2)

”You speak as confidently as though you deemed it an absolute certainty that you will eventually succeed in making your escape from those wretches. Do you still regard the project as a hopeful one?” said Sibylla inquiringly.

”Yes, most certainly,” answered Ned, as he carefully withdrew the bullet from his carbine, and subst.i.tuted for it a charge of small shot. ”The fellows are certain to grow careless, sooner or later, and afford us a chance to give them the slip, even if we do not fall in with a man-of- war and get taken. Keep up your spirits, Miss Stanhope; keep up your spirits and your courage, I say, for I am always thinking and planning, and I never mean to rest satisfied until I have taken you out of the hands of those wretches and safe back to England again.”

”You are very good to say so, Mr Damerell, nay more than good,”

answered Sibylla frankly, ”and come what may, I shall never, _never_ forget your constant watchful care.”

”Oh, don't say too much about that,” answered Ned cheerfully. ”I look upon you almost as a second sister, you know, and I am only doing for you just exactly what I should wish to be done for my sister Eva if she were placed in a similar position to yours. And as long as you are compelled to remain on board the _Cloud_, I hope you will trust me as fully and as implicitly as if I were your brother; it will perhaps make you feel less lonely, you know, if it serves no other good purpose. And now, where is my bird? I am quite ready for him.”

The creature was still hopping about among the branches of a tree almost directly overhead, apparently feeding on the fruit or berries which it found there; and taking careful aim, Ned fired. The report of the carbine went echoing back and forth between the cliffs in the most astounding manner, raising a tremendous disturbance, not only by its reverberations along the cliffs on both sides of the basin, but also from the cries of the countless startled birds which suddenly appeared in the air, and the excited chattering of the equally startled monkeys.

As the smoke from the piece blew away, Ned saw his quarry tumbling from branch to branch, and bough to bough, until it finally brought up in a small bush which overhung the water some fifty feet above its surface.

”Killed him, by all that's lucky!” exclaimed Ned joyously. ”Now, if you do not mind being left in the boat a moment by yourself whilst I slip aloft there--I will make the painter fast to this sapling so that you may not go adrift--I will secure my prize.”

”But will it not be dangerous for you to climb up there?” protested Sibylla apprehensively.

”If I find it so I will not persevere in my attempt,” answered Ned laughingly, as he grasped a bough and swung himself up on to a projecting ledge of rock.

For a few yards of the ascent Ned's figure was clearly visible; then, as he ascended still higher, Sibylla caught sight of him only at intervals, and soon afterwards he vanished altogether among the greenery, though his upward progress could still be traced here and there by the swaying of the bushes, but at length this also ceased, and then a dreadful silence and feeling of lonesomeness seemed to enwrap the fair girl as in the folds of a sable mantle. Minute followed minute with painful slowness as it seemed to Sibylla, and _every_ instant she expected to see Ned's outstretched arm appear from the midst of the shrubs clinging aloft there to grasp the body of the bird. But nothing of the sort occurred, and at length, after a long and tedious period of painful apprehension, she ventured to call his name.

No answer.

Sibylla waited a minute or two, and then called again.

Still no answer.

She now became very seriously alarmed, and, quite losing command of herself, called upon him in piteous accents to answer, or if anything had befallen him to give her some sign of his whereabouts in order that she might be guided to his a.s.sistance. Still calling him, she was about to attempt the perilous ascent of the cliff-face in quest of him when she heard him shout, and, looking up, saw him leaning over the edge of a rocky ledge about a hundred feet above her.

”Are you all right, Miss Stanhope?” he shouted. ”I thought I heard you call.”

”Yes,” she replied, steadying her voice as well as she could on the instant. ”I am all right, thank you, but I _have_ been calling; you were so long away that I began to fear some accident had befallen you.”

”No,” he answered back, ”I am all right, but I have made a most wonderful and interesting discovery that--However, I will come down.”

And suiting the action to the word, he at once began to descend the face of the cliff, not vertically, as he had gone up, but in a diagonal direction, and, as Sibylla thought, at break-neck speed. Ned continued his wild career until he reached the water's-edge, at a distance of perhaps two hundred feet to the westward of the boat, when, from what Sibylla could see of his movements, he appeared to break the bough of a bush in such a manner as to leave the branch dangling from the parent shrub, after which he began to make his way along the cliff-face toward the boat.

A few minutes later he reached the dinghy--minus the bird, by the by, which he had set out to secure--and stepping in at once proceeded to cast off the painter. Then, as he stepped aft and tossed the paddles into the rowlocks, he first got a glimpse of Sibylla's still troubled face.

”I beg your pardon, Miss Stanhope,” he said. ”I am afraid I have frightened you by my long stay aloft there. The fact is I was so interested in my discovery that for the moment I forgot the flight of time.

”I have made a most curious and important discovery, and one that may or may not be of the utmost value to us. When I started aloft to get that bird--by the bye, where is it? Ah! I see it! and I will have it, too, before I go back to the s.h.i.+p; but I will tell you my story first. I had not made my way very far up the cliff when I came to what looked so very much like a flight of roughly hewn steps running up the cliff-face that I determined to follow the indications, and investigate. I did so, and soon came to the conclusion that, though the step-like projections were just as thickly overgrown as the rest of the cliff-face--showing that they had not been used for years, or possibly generations, they had undoubtedly been wrought out by the hand of man. Pus.h.i.+ng the shrubs on one side I had no difficulty whatever in making my way upwards, until I at length came out upon a flat platform of rock, in the outer edge of which were two holes or depressions, some twelve feet apart, which I imagined might have been hollowed out to receive the heels of a pair of sheers, an impression which was rendered all the stronger when, on looking more closely, I discovered a groove terminating in a third hole which I immediately guessed must have been formed to receive the heel of the back-leg. All this is, I suppose, Greek to you; but you will perhaps comprehend me when I explain that sheers are used to a.s.sist in hoisting heavy articles with. The rocky platform is about fifteen feet square, the cliff-face overhanging it above; and at its back part there is a sort of split in the rock about eight feet wide and nearly the same height. I pa.s.sed in through this crevice, and at once found myself in a cave perhaps thirty feet wide and about fifty feet deep. And now comes the strangest part of the affair. It is nearly half full of bales and parcels, with several jars, apparently earthenware, their mouths tied over with what looks like a coa.r.s.e kind of cloth; but everything is so thickly coated with dust and grime that it is quite impossible to guess at the contents of these jars and bales without further investigation.

And in one corner there are stacked up a number of weapons--spears and axes--so rusted and decayed that they may have been there for centuries.

There are also a number of what I took to be s.h.i.+elds by the look of them; but they, like everything else, are so coated with dust that I did not touch them. But I must certainly give the place a thorough overhaul, as it may serve us as a refuge and place of concealment at a pinch. Would you like to go up and have a look at the cave and its contents now?”

”I should like it very much, if you think I could climb the stairs,”

answered Sibylla.

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