_ CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. AN IGNOMINIOUS ASCENT
"Am I to send someone down?" cried the Colonel, angrily.
"No, father," shouted Gwyn, his father's voice seeming to give him new force. "The ladder won't bear four."
"Then make fast that knot, sir. Quick, at once!"
"Yes, father," said the boy, as a thrill of energy ran through him, and he felt as if he could once more do something toward relieving himself from the strange feeling of inertia which had fettered every sense.
"You get up higher," growled Hardock, "and hold on, my lad."
"No. Keep where you are," cried Gwyn, whose voice now sounded firm. "If I leave him, he'll go."
"Nay, you go on; I'll take care o' that," said Hardock. "Up with you!"
"Keep down, I say," cried Gwyn, fiercely.
"Are you ready?" shouted the Colonel.
"In another minute, father," cried Gwyn; and, drawing out one arm, he made a snatch at the rope, drew it from Hardock's hand, and then hauled it higher by using his teeth as well as his right-hand.
"Better let me come, my lad."
"No," said Gwyn, shortly.
"Ready?" came from above.
"Not quite, father. I'll say when."
That last demand gave the final fillip to the lad's nerves, and, taking tightly hold of the spell above Joe's head with both hands, he raised his own legs till they came level with Joe's loins, and bestriding him as if on horseback, he crooked his legs and ankles round the sides of the ladder, held on by forcing his toes round a spell, and then, with his hands free, he hung back, and quickly knotted the rope about Joe's chest.
"Steady, my lad! Be ready to take hold," said Hardock, whose face was now streaming with perspiration, and his hands wet, as he looked up at the perilous position of Gwyn. Then, obeying a sudden thought, he loosened one hand, snatched off his cap, threw it down, and took three steps up the ladder, raising himself so that he could force his head beneath the lad, with the result that he gave him plenty of support, relieving him of a great deal of the strain on his muscles, for during the next minute he was, as it were, seated upon the mining captain's head.
"That's better," panted Gwyn.
"Make a good knot, lad," growled Hardock; and all was perfectly silent at the edge of the cliff above them, for every movement was being attentively watched.
"Hah!" sighed Gwyn, as he tightened the last knot.
"Quite safe?" asked Hardock.
"Yes, quite."
"What next?"
"Get down!"
"Are you right?"
"Yes."
Hardock yielded very slowly for a while, and then stopped and raised himself again.
"What yer doing?"
"Getting out my knife. He's lashed to the spell."
"Oh!"
Gwyn's hands were dripping wet, and, as he tried to force his right into his pocket, he had a hard struggle, for it stuck to the lining, the strain of his position helping to resist its passage. But at last he forced it in, to find to his horror that the knife was not in that pocket, and he had a terrible job to drag out his hand.
"Can't get at my knife," he panted.
"All right; have mine," was growled, and Hardock took out and opened his own. "Here you are."
The boy blindly lowered his hand for the knife, and not a whisper was heard in those critical moments. For every movement was scanned, and the Colonel was lying on his chest, straining his eyes, as he waited to give the order to haul up.
Gwyn gripped the knife, a sharp-pointed Spanish blade, and raised it, bending forward now, so as to look over Joe's shoulder to see where to cut.
His intention was to thrust the point in between the silken cord and the boy's wrists; but he found it impossible without having both hands, and there was nothing for it but to saw right down.
This he began to do just beneath the knots, hoping that the last part would yield before the knife could touch the boy's skin.
"Take care, my lad," growled Hardock.
"Yes; I'm trying not to cut him," panted Gwyn.
"Nay, I mean when you're through. Hold tight yourself."
"Yes, I'll try."
"Tell 'em to make the rope quite taut."
"Haul and hold fast," cried Gwyn.
"Right!" came promptly from above, and a heavy strain was felt.
"I--tied it--so tight," muttered Gwyn, as he sawed away.
"Ay, and his weight. Steady, my lad, steady!"
"Hah! that's through," cried Gwyn. "Be ready to haul."
"Right!" came from above.
"Shall I get lower?" said Hardock.
"Yes!--No! The other knot holds him," panted Gwyn; and he had to begin cutting again; but this time he found that by laying the blade of the knife flat against the spell, he could force the point beneath the handkerchief. "Now, steady, Sam," he said, "I'm going to have one big cut, and then hold on."
"All right, my lad. I'll support you all I can, but you must hold tight."
The strain on the rope was firm and steady, as Gwyn drew a deep breath, forced the knife point steadily through beneath the silk, raised the edge of the blade a little more and a little more, and then, in an agony of despair, just as he was about to give one bold thrust, he let go, and snatched at the ladder side.
For all at once there was a sharp, scraping sound. The silk, which had been strained like a fiddle-string over a bridge, parted on the edge of the keen knife, and, as Joe's arms dropped quite nerveless and inert, down went the knife, and Gwyn felt that he was going after.
For in those brief moments he seemed to be falling fast.
But he was not moving; it was Joe being drawn upward, and the next minute Gwyn was clinging with his breast now on the spells of the ladder, against which he was being pressed, Hardock, with a rapid movement, having forced himself up so as to occupy the same position as Gwyn had so lately held with respect to Joe.
"He's all right--if your knots hold," said Hardock, softly. "How is it with you, my lad?"
"Out of breath, that's all. I can't look, though, now, Sam. Watch and see if he goes up all right."
"No need, my lad," said the man, bitterly. "We should soon know if he came down. Come, hold up your chin, and show your pluck. There's nothing to mind now. Why, you're all of a tremble."
"Yes; it isn't that I feel frightened now," said the boy; "but all the muscles in my legs and arms are as if they were trembling and jerking."
"'Nough to make 'em," growled Hardock. "Never mind, the rope'll soon be down again--yes, they've got him, and they're letting another down. I'll soon have you fast and send you up."
"No, you won't, Sam," said Gwyn, who was rapidly recovering his balance. "I haven't forgotten the last knot you made round me."
"Well, well! I do call that mean," growled the man. "You comes and fetches me to help, and I has to chuck my cap away; then you chucks my best knife down after it; and now you chucks that there in my teeth. I do call it a gashly shame."
"Never mind. I don't want the rope at all," said Gwyn. "There, slacken your hold. I'm going to climb up."
"Nay; better have the rope, my lad."
"I don't want the rope. I'm tired and hot, but I can climb up."
"Gwyn!" came at that moment.
"Yes, father."
"Just sarves you right," growled Hardock. "Take some of the gashly conceit out of you, my lad. Now, then, I'm going to tie you up."
"No; I shall do it myself," said Gwyn, making a snatch at the line lowered down. "Now, get out of my way."
"Oh, very well; but don't blame me if you fall."
"No fear, Sam."
"Nay, there's no fear, my lad; but I hope we're not going to have no more o' this sort o' thing. There's the pumping stopped and everything out o' gear, but it's always the way when there's boys about. I never could understand what use they were, on'y to get in mischief and upset the work. We sha'n't get much tin out o' Ydoll mine if you two's going to hang about, I know that much. Now, then, the rope aren't safe."
"Yes, it is," said Gwyn, who had made a loop and passed it over his head and arms. "I'm not going to swing. I'm going to walk up."
"Ready, my lad?" cried the Colonel.
"Yes, father; but I'll climb up, please. You can have the rope hauled on as I come."
"Come on, then," cried the Colonel.
"Yes, father, coming."
"Hor, hor!" laughed Hardock, derisively, as he drew back to the full extent of his arms so as to set Gwyn free. "Up you goes, my lad, led just like a puppy-dog at the end of a string. Mind you don't fall."
"If it wasn't so dangerous for you, I'd kick you, Sam," said Gwyn.
"Kick away, then, my lad; 'taint the first time I've been on a ladder by a few thousand times. My hands and feet grows to a ladder, like, and holds on. You won't knock me off. But I say!"
"What is it?" said Gwyn, who was steadily ascending, with the rope held fairly taut from above.
"You'll pay for a new hat for me?"
"Oh, yes, of course."
"And another knife, better than the one you pitched overboard?"
"Oh, we can come round in a boat and find that when the tide's down."
"Rocks are never bare when the tide's down here, my lad. There's always six fathom o' water close below here; so you wouldn't ha' been broken up if you'd falled; but you might ha' been drownded. That were a five-shilling knife."
"All right, Sam, I'll buy you another," shouted Gwyn, who was some distance up now.
"Thank ye. Before you go, though," said Sam Hardock.
"Go? Go where?"
"Off to school, my lad; I'm going to 'tishion your two fathers to send you both right away, for I can't have you playing no more of your pranks in my mine, and so I tell you."
Gwyn made no reply, but he went steadily up, while, on casting a glance below, he saw that the mine captain was making his way as steadily down; but he thought a good deal, and a great deal more afterwards, for, on reaching the top of the cliff, there lay Joe on the short grass, looking ghastly pale, and his father, with Joe's, ready to seize him by the arm and draw him into safety.
"There must be no more of this," said the Colonel, sternly. "You two boys are not fit to be trusted in these dangerous places. Now, go home at once."
The little crowd attracted by the accident had begun to cheer wildly, but the congratulatory sound did Gwyn no good. He did not feel a bit like the hero of an adventure, one who had done brave deeds, but a very ordinary schoolboy sort of personage, who was being corrected for a fault, and he felt very miserable as he turned to Joe.
"Are you coming home, too?"
"Yes. I suppose so," said Joe, dismally.
There was another cheer, and the boys felt as if they could not face the crowd, till an angry flush came upon Gwyn's cheeks; for there stood, right in the front, the big, swarthy fellow who had been caught plumbing the depth of the mine, and he was grinning widely at them both.
"Ugh!" thought Gwyn, "how I should like to punch that chap's head. Here, Joe, let's tell our fathers that this fellow is hanging about here."
"No," said Joe, dismally. "I feel as if I didn't mind about anything now. My father looked at me as if I'd been doing it all on purpose to annoy him. Let's go home." _