Part 4 (1/2)

CHAPTER THREE.

A GUNPOWDER PLOT.

We three boys sat down at the edge of the steepest side of the crags after this to rest, and think what we should do next, and to help our plans we amused ourselves by pitching pieces of loose stone down as far as we could.

Then the rope was dragged over the Beacon rock and coiled up, while I tugged and wriggled the iron bar to and fro till I could get it free.

”Let's go down to the sh.o.r.e now, and see if we can find some crabs,” I said. ”The tide's getting very low.”

”What's the good?” said Bob picking up the iron bar, and chipping this stone and loosening that. ”I say, why don't some of those stones rock?

They ought to.”

He began to wander aimlessly about for a few minutes, and then, finding a piece that must have been about a hundredweight, he began to prise it about using the iron bar as a lever, and to such good effect that he soon had it close to the edge.

”Look here, lads,” he cried, ”here's a game! I'm going to send this rolling down.”

We joined him directly, for there seemed to be a prospect of some amus.e.m.e.nt in seeing the heavy rugged ma.s.s go rolling down here, making a leap down the perpendicular parts there, and coming to an anchor somewhere many hundred feet below where we were perched.

For there was not even a sheep in sight, the side of the valley below us being a rugged ma.s.s of desolation, only redeemed by patches of whortleberry and purple heath with the taller growing heather.

”Over with it, Bob,” cried Bigley; ”shall I help?”

”No, no, you needn't help neither,” said Bob. ”I'm going to do it all myself scientifically, as Doctor Stacey calls it. This bar's a fulcrum.”

”No, no,” I said; ”that isn't right.”

”Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Bigley.

”Then what is it, please, Mr Clever? Doctor Stacey said bars were fulcrums, and you put the end under a big stone, and then put a little one down for a lever--just so, and then you pressed down the end of the bar--so, and then--”

”Oh! Look at it,” cried Bigley.

For Bob had been suiting the action to the word, and before he realised what he was doing the effect of the lever was to lift the side of the big stone, so that it remained poised for a few moments and then fell over, gliding slowly for a few feet, and then gathering velocity it made a leap right into a heap of _debris_ which it scattered, and then another leap and another, followed by roll, rush, and rumble, till, always gathering velocity, amidst the rush and rattle of stones, it made one final bound of a couple of hundred feet at least, and fell far below us on a projecting ma.s.s of rock, to be s.h.i.+vered to atoms, while the sound came echoing up, and then seemed to run away down the valley and out to sea.

No one spoke for a few moments, for the feeling upon us was one of awe.

”I say, that was fine!” cried Bob at last. ”Let's do another. You don't mind, do you, Sep?”

”N-no,” I said, ”I don't think it does any harm.”

I spoke hesitatingly, as I could not help wondering what my father would have said had he been there.

”Come along,” cried Bob, who was intensely excited now, ”let's send a big one down.”

His eagerness was contagious, and we followed him up a little along the edge of the steep cliff to find a bigger piece; but, though we could find plenty of small ones, which we sent bounding down by the help of the iron lever with more or less satisfactory results, the heavy ma.s.ses all seemed to have portions so wedged or buried in the live rock that our puny efforts were without avail.

”I tell you what,” said Bigley at last, ”I know!”

”What do you know?” cried Bob with a sneer, for somehow, though he could easily have taken us one under each arm, Bigley used to be terribly pecked by both.