Part 39 (2/2)

While he was speaking, the little vessel lay over on her new course, and Ruby steered again past the north side of the rock. He shaved it so close that the Frenchman shouted, ”_Prenez garde_,” and put a pistol to Ruby's ear.

”Do you think I wish to die?” asked Ruby, with a quiet smile. ”Now, captain, I want to point out the course, so as to make you sure of it.

Bid one of your men take the wheel, and step up on the bulwarks with me, and I will show you.”

This was such a natural remark in the circ.u.mstances, and moreover so naturally expressed, that the Frenchman at once agreed. He ordered a seaman to take the wheel, and then stepped with Ruby upon the bulwarks at the stern of the vessel.

”Now, you see the position of the lighthouse,” said Ruby, ”well, you must keep your course due east after pa.s.sing it. If you steer to the nor'ard o' that, you'll run on the Scotch coast; if you bear away to the south'ard of it, you'll run a chance, in this state o' the tide, of getting wrecked among the Farne Islands; so keep her head _due east_.”

Ruby said this very impressively; so much so, that the Frenchman looked at him in surprise.

”Why you so particulare?” he enquired, with a look of suspicion.

”Because I am going to leave you,” said Ruby, pointing to the Bell Rock, which at that moment was not much more than a hundred yards to leeward.

Indeed, it was scarcely so much, for the outlying rock at the northern end named _Johnny Gray_, lay close under their lee as the vessel pa.s.sed.

Just then a great wave burst upon it, and, roaring in wild foam over the ledges, poured into the channels and pools on the other side. For one instant Ruby's courage wavered, as he gazed at the flood of boiling foam.

”What you say?” exclaimed the Frenchman, laying his hand on the collar of Ruby's jacket.

The young sailor started, struck the Frenchman a backhanded blow on the chest, which hurled him violently against the man at the wheel, and, bending down, sprang with a wild shout into the sea.

So close had he steered to the rock, in order to lessen the danger of his reckless venture, that the privateer just weathered it. There was not, of course, the smallest chance of recapturing Ruby. No ordinary boat could have lived in the sea that was running at the time, even in open water, much less among the breakers of the Bell Rock. Indeed, the crew felt certain that the English sailor had allowed despair to overcome his judgment, and that he must infallibly be dashed to pieces on the rocks, so they did not check their onward course, being too glad to escape from the immediate neighbourhood of such a dangerous spot.

Meanwhile Ruby buffeted the billows manfully. He was fully alive to the extreme danger of the attempt, but he knew exactly what he meant to do.

He trusted to his intimate knowledge of every ledge and channel and current, and had calculated his motions to a nicety.

He knew that at the particular state of the tide at the time, and with the wind blowing as it then did, there was a slight eddy at the point of _Cunningham's Ledge_. His life, he felt, depended on his gaining that eddy. If he should miss it, he would be dashed against _Johnny Gray's_ rock, or be carried beyond it and cast upon _Strachan's Ledge_ or _Scoreby's Point_, and no man, however powerful he might be, could have survived the shock of being launched on any of these rocks. On the other hand, if, in order to avoid these dangers, he should swim too much to windward, there was danger of his being carried on the crest of a billow and hurled upon the weather-side of _Cunningham's Ledge_, instead of getting into the eddy under its lee.

All this Ruby had seen and calculated when he pa.s.sed the north end of the rock the first time, and he had fixed the exact spot where he should take the plunge on repa.s.sing it. He acted so promptly that a few minutes sufficed to carry him towards the eddy, the tide being in his favour. But when he was about to swim into it, a wave burst completely over the ledge, and, pouring down on his head, thrust him back. He was almost stunned by the shock, but retained sufficient presence of mind to struggle on. For a few seconds he managed to bear up against wind and tide, for he put forth his giant strength with the energy of a desperate man, but gradually he was carried away from the rock, and for the first time his heart sank within him.

Just then one of those rushes or swirls of water, which are common among rocks in such a position, swept him again forward, right into the eddy which he had struggled in vain to reach, and thrust him violently against the rock. This back current was the precursor of a tremendous billow, which came towering on like a black moving wall. Ruby saw it, and, twining his arm amongst the seaweed, held his breath.

The billow fell! Only those who have seen the Bell Rock in a storm can properly estimate the roar that followed. None but Ruby himself could tell what it was to feel that world of water rus.h.i.+ng overhead. Had it fallen directly upon him, it would have torn him from his grasp and killed him, but its full force had been previously spent on _Cunningham's Ledge_. In another moment it pa.s.sed, and Ruby, quitting his hold, struck out wildly through the foam. A few strokes carried him through _Sinclair's_ and _Wilson's_ tracks into the little pool formerly mentioned as _Port Stevenson_.

[The author has himself bathed in Port Stevenson, so that the reader may rely on the fidelity of this description of it and the surrounding ledges.]

Here he was in comparative safety. True, the sprays burst over the ledge called _The Last Hope_ in heavy ma.s.ses, but these could do him no serious harm, and it would take a quarter of an hour at least for the tide to sweep into the pool. Ruby therefore swam quietly to _Trinity Ledge_, where he landed, and, stepping over it, sat down to rest, with a thankful heart, on _Smith's Ledge_, the old familiar spot where he and Jamie Dove had wrought so often and so hard at the forge in former days.

He was now under the shadow of the Bell Rock Lighthouse, which towered high above his head; and the impression of immovable solidity which its cold, grey, stately column conveyed to his mind, contrasted powerfully with the howling wind and the raging sea around. It seemed to him, as he sat there within three yards of its granite base, like the impersonation of repose in the midst of turmoil; of peace surrounded by war; of calm and solid self-possession in the midst of fretful and raging instability.

No one was there to welcome Ruby. The lightkeepers, high up in the apartments in their wild home, knew nothing and heard nothing of all that had pa.s.sed so near them. The darkness of the night and the roaring of the storm was all they saw or heard of the world without, as they sat in their watch tower reading or tr.i.m.m.i.n.g their lamps.

But Ruby was not sorry for this; he felt glad to be alone with G.o.d, to thank Him for his recent deliverance.

Exhausting though the struggle had been, its duration was short, so that he soon recovered his wonted strength. Then, rising, he got upon the iron railway, or ”rails”, as the men used to call it, and a few steps brought him to the foot of the metal ladder conducting to the entrance-door.

Climbing up, he stood at last in a place of safety, and disappeared within the doorway of the lighthouse.

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