Part 8 (2/2)
”Oy--oy!” came back from the wall, and directly after, much more faintly--”Oy--help!”
”Oh, what fools--what idiots!” cried Joe, excitedly; and certain now of where his comrade was, he went quickly down the slope to the cliff edge and looked over down towards where the sea eddied among the fallen rocks three hundred feet below, and shouted,--”Gwyn!--Gwyn!”
His voice seemed lost there; but as he listened there came faintly a reply in the one appealing cry--”help!”
But it was away to his right, where the rocks rose up rugged and broken.
Where he stood the gra.s.s ran right to the edge, but there the granite looked as if it had been built up with large blocks into a mighty overhanging bastion, which rose up fully fifty feet higher; and it was evident that Gwyn had worked his way somewhere out to the cliff face far below this ma.s.s.
”Why there must be an adit,” cried Hardock, in a tone full of wonder.
”I never knowed of that.”
[Note; an adit is a horizontal shaft driven in from the cliff.]
”Yes, and he's safe--he's safe?” cried Joe; and his manliness all departed in his wild excitement, for he burst into a fit of hysterical sobbing. He mastered his emotion though, directly, and shouted,--
”Hold on! Coming,” in the hope of being heard.
He was heard, for, faintly heard from below to their right, came the former appealing word--
”Help!”
”All right,” he yelled. ”Now, Sam, can I get down there?”
”You'll get to the bottom afore you know it,” replied the man. ”No.”
”Then you must lower me with the rope.”
”What, and one o' my knots!” said the man, maliciously.
”Oh, don't talk,” cried Joe, ”but come on. We must get along to where it's right over him, and then I'll go down. But did you ever see a hole along here?”
”Nay--never!”
”Come on.”
Joe led the way inland, and then had to clamber over block after block of tumbled together granite for some fifty yards, when he turned to begin mounting to the hog-back-like ridge which ran out to the great bastion which overhung the sea.
It was an awkward climb--not dangerous, but difficult. Joe's heart was in his work though; and, free now from superst.i.tious dread, Hardock toiled after him, keeping up so that he was at his shoulder when the boy lay down on his chest and looked over the edge.
For a few moments he could see nothing but ledge and jutting block, whitened by the sea-birds which here brought up their young in peace, for even the reckless boys had looked upon it as too hazardous to descend. The sea far below was just creaming among the rocks which peered above the water, and ran out in a reef causing a dangerous race; but though Joe searched the whole cliff face below him for nearly a minute he could see nothing, and at last he shouted with all his might and had a lesson in the feebleness of the human voice in that vast expanse.
”Ahoy!”
”Ahoy!” came up from below as faintly as the cry which evoked it.
”I can't see him,” said Hardock, shading his eyes as he peered down.
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