_ CHAPTER SIXTEEN. A BRAVE ATTEMPT
For a few moments Max Blande stood as if petrified, and those moments were like an hour, while the thought flashed through him of what must be going on below, where he seemed to see Kenneth gazing down in horror at the shapeless form of Scoodrach lying unrecognisable on the rocks below.
All feeling of dread on his own behalf was gone now; and, as soon as the first shock was over, he tore himself free of the snake-like rope, and stepped to the edge of the cliff, to gaze down with dilated eyes.
"Well, you've done it now!" saluted him as he strained over the edge to look below, where Kenneth, instead of looking down, was looking up, while Scood was lying on the shelf of rock, rubbing himself with a hand that was bleeding freely.
"Is--is he killed?" faltered Max, whose lips formed the question he had been about to ask before he saw the gillie lying there.
"Do you hear, Scood? Are you killed?" said Kenneth coolly.
"Is she kilt? Na, she isna kilt," cried Scoodrach, with a savage snarl, which was answered by a furious fit of barking from the terrier, as he too looked down. "Hech, but this is the hartest stane! She's gien hersel' a dreadful ding."
"Then you are both safe?" cried Max joyfully.
"Oh yes, quite safe, Max. Locked up tight. Did you cut the rope?"
"Cut the rope? No, I didn't touch it. Why did it break?"
"I say, Scoody, why did the rope break?"
"Oh, she's a pad rotten old rope, an' she'll burn her as soon as she gets up again. But what a ding I gave my airm!"
"That's it, Max; the rope was rotten. Can you tie it together if we throw it up to you?"
"Na," shouted Scoodrach; "she couldna tie it together, and she couldna throw it up."
"I'm afraid I couldn't tie it tight enough," faltered Max; "but if I could, it would not bear you."
"It would have to bear us. We can't stop down here. I say, Scoody, think we could climb up?"
Scoodrach shook his head.
"Well, then, can we get down?"
"If she could get up or doon without a rope, the hawks wouldn't have built their nest."
"That sounds like good logic, Max," cried Kenneth, "so you had better let yourself over till you can hang by your hands, and then drop, and we'll catch you."
"What?"
"You wouldn't hurt yourself so much as Scoody did, because we can both help you. He nearly went right over, and dragged me with him."
"Oh!" ejaculated Max, with a shudder.
"Well, are you coming?"
"No! Impossible! What for?"
"To keep us company for a week or two, till somebody sees us. Hallo, Sneeshing! Good dog, then! Come down, we want you. Hooray, Scoody! dog for dinner! enough for three days. Then the young falcons will do for another day. Well, are you coming?"
"Oh, Kenneth," cried Max, "you're making fun again. What shall we do?"
"You mean, what shall we do? You're all right. But you had better lower down the gun, and then I can shoot Scoody decently, when Sneeshing and the young hawks are done!"
"Oh, pray be serious!"
"I am. It's a serious position. We mustn't trust the rope again--eh, Scoody?"
"Na! Oh, what a ding she gave her airm!"
"Bother your arm!" cried Kenneth. "Here, Max, what's to be done?"
"I'll run back and tell them at Dunroe."
"Ah, to be sure, that's the way! but I didn't know you could run across the loch."
Max's jaw dropped, and he gave his companions a helpless stare.
"I forgot the loch," he said. "What shall I do? Where's the nearest house?"
"Across the loch."
"Are there none this side?"
"There's a keeper's lodge ten miles away, on the other side of the mountain."
"I'll run all the way there!" cried Max eagerly. "Tell me the way."
"Well, you go right north, straight over the mountain, and whenever you come to a bog, you stick in it. Then you lose your way every now and then, and get benighted, and there you are."
"You're laughing at me again," cried Max in agony; "and I want to help you."
"Well, I want you to help us, old chap, for we're in a regular mess, and perhaps the hawks'll come and pick our eyes out to feed the young ones."
"There, now, you're laughing at me again!" cried Max. "I can't help being so ignorant of your ways."
"Of course you can't, Maxy. Well, look here, old chap, you can't get over the mountain without some one to show you the way."
"Na; she'd lose hersel'," cried Scoodrach. "Oh, what a ding she did give--"
"Bother your old airm, Scoody! do be quiet. Look here, Max: now, seriously, unless a yacht comes by, there's no chance of help, and just because we want a yacht to come by, there won't be one for a week."
"Then what shall I do?"
"Well, there's only one thing you can do."
"Yes? quick, tell me!"
"Go down to the boat and hoist the sail, and run back to Dunroe."
"But I couldn't manage her."
"All right, then. Let's all set to work and make our wills before we're starved to death. No, I tell you what: you've got the gun; you'll have to go shooting, and drop the birds over to us. You're a good shot, aren't you?"
Max was silent.
"Well, why don't you speak? Look here, take the gun and shoot a hare. You'll find one somewhere. Got any matches?"
"Yes, I have a little silver box of wax-lights."
"That's your sort! Then you can light a fire of heath and peat, and cook it, and drop it down, and we can eat it."
"But, as Mrs Glasse said in her cookery-book, 'First catch your hare.'"
"Why, you don't mean to say you couldn't shoot a hare?" cried Kenneth.
"She couldna shoot a hare," grumbled Scoodrach, rubbing his arm; and then, after looking very thoughtful and nervous, Max spoke out.
"I am going down to the boat," he said quietly; "and I shall try and set the sail, and go back to Dunroe."
"Bravo! hooray!" cried Kenneth. "That's your sort; only the wind isn't quite right, and you'll have to tack."
"To tack what--the sail?"
"No, no, I don't mean nail the sail to the mast."
"Oh, I remember; go backwards and forwards with the boat."
"There, Scoody!" cried Kenneth triumphantly; "I only wish you had got as much brains in your old red head as he has."
"Ret's a ferry coot colour for a het," grumbled Scoodrach, who was very sore, and who kept on gently rubbing the spot where he had given himself "such a ding."
"Good-bye!" cried Max. "I'll get back as soon as I can."
"That's right. Don't go to my father. Tell old Tavish and Long Shon, and they're to bring a strong rope."
"Yes; I won't forget."
"And steer with one hand, and hold the sheet in the other," cried Kenneth. "Don't do as I did. Good-bye, old chap; you're not a bad fellow after all."
"Oh, if I was only as strong and as clever as they are!" said Max to himself. "Well, what is it?"
This was to Sneeshing, who stood barking at him sharply, and then ran back to crouch on the edge of the precipice, where he could peer down at his master and at Scoodrach, who was still chafing his arm.
Max half wondered at himself, as, in his excitement, he slid and scrambled down the steep gully, getting over places and making bounds which he dared not have attempted half an hour earlier. The consequence was that he got down to the shore in a way which surprised himself, and then scrambled over the debris of fallen rocks to where the rope secured the boat to the stone.
It was no easy task to undo Scood's knot, but he worked at it, and, as he did so, wondered whether it was possible to make use of the cordage of the boat to take up and let down to the imprisoned pair, but he was fain to confess that, even doubled, there was nothing sufficiently trustworthy for the purpose; and, after throwing in the line, he gave the boat a good thrust as he leaped aboard, and then, as it glided out, found himself in a position which made his heart beat, as he wondered whether he would ever get safe to land.
Trying to recall the action of Scoodrach at starting, he seized the rope and began to haul upon the yard, to find, to his great delight, that it rose steadily and well, the line running quite easily through the block till the gaff was pretty well in its place, and the sail gave a flap which startled him and made the boat careen.
Then he stopped short, hardly knowing what to do next, but the right idea came, and he made the rope fast, crept back cautiously over the thwart to seat himself by the tiller, and, almost to his wonder, found that the boat was running easily along.
Taking the handle of the tiller and the sheet, he drew a breath of relief, for the whole business was easier than he expected, and already he was fifty yards from the face of the cliff, and gaining speed, when he heard a hail.
"Max! Ahoy!"
He looked sharply round and up, to see Kenneth waving his glengarry; and his next words sounded faint in the great space:
"Starboard! starboard! Going wrong."
To put his helm to starboard was so much Arabic to Max, but he had turned the handle in one direction, and he was going wrong, so he felt that to turn it the other way must be right. Pressing hard, then, he found that what he did had the effect of turning the boat half round, and making it go more slowly and diagonally in the direction from which the wind blew, and somewhat more toward the shelf where his friends were imprisoned, so that he could see them waving their caps, as moment by moment they seemed more distant.
And now, for the first time, as he caught sight of a pile of ruins far away to his right, he realised that he had been going away from Dunroe, which lay to the south, while now he was sailing south-east; and his spirits rose as he felt that he must be right in trying to reach that castle, which he remembered as being one that Kenneth had pointed out.
He turned his head again in the direction of the shelf, and there, high up, were the two boys, still waving their caps, either by way of encouragement or to try and give him advice by signs. But he could not tell which, neither could he signal in turn, for both hands were full; so, setting his teeth, and with a wonderful feeling of exhilaration and excitement, at which he was surprised, he devoted himself to his task. _