Part 12 (1/2)
Cautiously, step by step, holding on to such bushes as grew among the rocks pausing sometimes flattened against the rocks by the force of the gust, and drenched every moment by the sheets of spray, the boys made their way down, till they paused at a spot where the rock fell away sheer under their feet. They could go no farther. At the moment they heard a wild scream. A vessel appeared through the darkness below, and crashed with a tremendous thud against the rocks. The masts, which were so close that the boys seemed almost able to jump upon them, as they reached nearly to the level on which they were standing, instantly going over the side. Peering over, they could see the black ma.s.s in the midst of the surging white waters at their feet.
The sailors had paused some way up the ascent, appalled by the difficulties which the boys, lighter and more active, had accomplished.
”Go up to the top again,” Hawtry said, climbing back to them. ”Bring down one of those spars we brought down, a block, a long rope, and a short one to serve as a guy. Get half-a-dozen more hands. You'd better fix a rope at the top firmly, and use it to steady you as you return.
There's a s.h.i.+p ash.o.r.e just underneath us, and I think we can get down.”
In a few minutes the sailors descended again, carrying with them a spar some twenty feet long. With immense difficulty this was lowered to the spot which the boys had reached. One of the sailors had brought down a lantern, and by its light a block was lashed to the end, and a long rope roved through it. Then a shorter rope was fastened to the end as a guy, and the spar lowered out, till it sloped well over the edge. The lower edge was wedged in between two rocks, and others piled round it.
”Now,” d.i.c.k said, ”I will go down.”
”You'll never get down alive, sir,” one of the sailor said. ”The wind will dash you against the cliff. I'll try, sir, if you like; I'm heavier.”
”Let me go down with you,” Jack said. ”The two of us are heavier than a man, and we shall have four legs to keep us off the cliff. Besides, we can help each other down below.”
”All right,” d.i.c.k said. ”Fasten us to the rope, Hardy. Make two loops so that we shall hang face to face, and yet be separate, and give me a short rope of two or three fathoms long, so that we can rope ourselves together, and one hold on in case the other is washed off his feet when we get down. Look here, Hardy, do you lie down and look over the edge, and when you hear me yell, let them hoist away. Now for it!”
The boys were slung as d.i.c.k had ordered. ”Lower away steadily,” d.i.c.k said. ”Stop lowering if we yell.”
In another minute the lads were swinging in s.p.a.ce, some ten feet out from the face of the cliff. For the first few yards they descended steadily, and then, as the rope lengthened, the gusts of wind flung them violently against the face of the cliff.
”Fend her off with your legs, Jack; that's the way. By Jove, that's a ducking!” he said, as a mighty rush of spray enveloped them as a mountainous sea struck the rock below. ”I think we shall do it.
There's something black down below, I think some part of her still holds together; slowly!” he shouted up, in one of the pauses of the gale, and Hardy's response of ”Aye, aye, sir,” came down to them.
It was a desperate three minutes; but at the end of that time, bruised, bleeding, half-stunned by the blows, half-drowned by the sheets of water which flew over them, the lads' feet touched the rocks. These formed a sloping shelf of some thirty feet wide at the foot of the cliff.
The wreck which had appeared immediately under them was forty feet away, and appeared a vague, misshapen black ma.s.s. They had been seen, for they had waved the lantern from the edge of the cliff before starting, and they had several times shouted as they descended, and as they neared the ground, they were delighted at hearing by an answering shout that their labors had not been in vain, and that some one still survived.
”Throw us a rope,” d.i.c.k shouted at the top of his voice; and in a moment they heard a rope fall close to them. Groping about in the darkness, they found it, just as a wave burst below them, and, das.h.i.+ng high over their heads, drove them against the rock, and then floated them off their feet. The rope from above held them, however. ”Lower away!” d.i.c.k yelled, as he regained his feet, and then, aided by the rope from the s.h.i.+p, they scrambled along, and were hauled on to the wreck before the next great sea came.
”I've broken my arm, d.i.c.k,” Jack said; ”but never mind me now. How many are there alive?”
There were sixteen men huddled together under the remains of the bulwark. The greater portion of the s.h.i.+p was gone altogether, and only some forty feet of her stern remained high on the rocky ledge on which she had been cast. The survivors were for the most part too exhausted to move, but those who still retained some strength and vigor at once set to work. In pairs they were fastened in the slings, and hauled up direct from the deck of the vessel, another rope being fastened to them and held by those on the wreck, by which means they were guided and saved somewhat from being dashed against the cliff in the ascent.
When those below felt, by the rope no longer pa.s.sing between their hands, that the slings had reached the top, they waited for a minute to allow those in them to be taken out, and then hauling upon the rope, pulled the slings down again for a fresh party. So, slowly and painfully, the whole party were, two by two, taken up from the wreck.
Several times while the operation was being performed great crashes were heard, followed by loud shouts and screams, as vessel after vessel drove ash.o.r.e to the right or left of them. But Jack and his friend, who consulted together, agreed that by no possibility could these be aided, as it was only just at the point where the wreck lay that the rocks at the foot of the cliff were high enough to be above all but exceptionally high waves, and any one adventuring many yards either to the right or left would have been dashed to pieces against the cliff by the first wave.
The mids.h.i.+pmen were the last to leave the s.h.i.+p. d.i.c.k had in vain begged his messmate to go up in one of the preceding batches, as the last pair would necessarily be deprived of the a.s.sistance from the lower rope, which had so materially aided the rest. Jack, however, refused to hear of it. When the slings came down to them for the last time, they put them on, and stood on the wreck watching till a great wave came. When it had pa.s.sed, they slipped down the side of the s.h.i.+p by a rope, and hurried over the rocks till immediately under the spar, whose position was indicated by a lantern held there. Then, in answer to their shout, the rope tightened, and they again swung in the air.
The wind blew no more fiercely than before; indeed, it was scarce possible it could do so; but they were now both utterly exhausted.
During the hour and a half which they had stood upon the remains of the wreck, they had been, every minute or two, deluged with water.
Sometimes, indeed, the sea had swept clean over them, and had it not been that they had lashed themselves with ropes, they must have been swept away.
Every great wave had swept away some plank or beam of the wreck, and when they left it, scarce a fragment of the deck remained attached to the rudder-post. Terrible was the buffeting they received as they ascended, and time after time they were dashed with immense force against the face of the cliff.
To Jack the noise and confusion seemed to increase. A strange singing sounded in his ears, and as the slings reached the top, and a burst of cheering broke from the seamen there, all consciousness left him.
The officer in command of the party was himself at the spot; he and many others having made their way down, when the news spread that a rescue was being attempted. d.i.c.k, too, was unable to stand, and both were carried by the sailors to the top of the slope. Here a cup of strong rum-and-water was given to d.i.c.k, while some pure spirits poured down his throat soon recalled Jack to consciousness. The latter, upon opening his eyes, would have got up, but this his officer would not allow; and he was placed on a stretcher and carried by four tars up to the heights, where he was laid in one of the sod huts, and his arm, which was badly fractured, set by the surgeon.