_ CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. FREE!
It was a slim, grey-haired, military looking man who listened to these words with the light of one of the lanterns full upon his face, which contracted into a heavy frown.
"You challenged them--warned them well?"
"Again and again, sir. It was not until they were right down here, after the sergeant had been hurt, that we fired."
The governor, for he it was, shrugged his shoulders and gave his orders. Then four of the most active of the warders began to descend, lanterns in hand, each looking like a spark on the face of the black rock.
The task was so perilous that at the end of a few minutes the governor ordered the men to halt, while ropes were fetched, and in due time these were brought and secured to the climbers' waists, the ropes being paid out by the warders on the shelf, the light of the lanterns being now supplemented by the blue lights held in the sterns of the fast approaching cutters.
"Ahoy, there, ashore!" was shouted by the officer in one of the boats; "men escaping?"
"Yes; three," was shouted back. "Row to and fro, and see if you can make out a man swimming."
"Right! Swimming, indeed! Where's he to swim to?" grumbled the officer; and at a word then the boats separated, and were rowed slowly along at a short distance from the shore.
Then came a hall from below, and a man bearing one lantern began to climb sidewise to where another had become stationary.
"Well?" from the shelf.
"One of 'em, sir."
"Mind. Wait for help and look out for treachery."
"He won't show no treachery," muttered the warder, holding the lantern over a ghastly face contorted by agony. "Well, mate, I'd give in now."
"Yes," said the man with a groan. "I'm sick as a dog. Hold me. I shall go into the sea. Get me back. The doctor."
He said no more. His grasp of the rock to which he clung relaxed, and he began to slide down sidewise till the warder thrust his leg beneath him and grasped one arm.
"Look sharp!" he said to his companion. "Set the lantern down, and mine too."
"Can you hold him?"
"Yes; all right. Now untie the rope from round me, and make it fast under his arms."
"Where's he hurt?" said the second warder.
"Leg, I think. His things are all wet with blood. Look sharp."
The knots were untied, and as the insensible, wounded man was held up, the rope was made fast under his arms, and at the word, the unfortunate wretch was carefully hauled up.
But before he was half-way to the shelf there was a second hail from close down the water side.
"Here's another of 'em, sir."
"Hurt?"
"Yes, sir, or else shamming."
"Wait till another man gets down to you," cried the governor. "Be careful!"
The man who had given up his rope was not far above the spot where the second convict lay; and he managed to lower himself down, holding his lantern the while in his teeth, and soon after adding its light to that of the other warder's.
"Think he's shamming?" asked the man who had found him.
The fresh comer stooped down without hesitation, in spite of the warning from above; and after looking fixedly in the convict's closely shaven face, passed his hand here and there about the prison clothes.
"Don't feel nothing," he said, "but this isn't shamming. Here, hold up, my lad. Where are you hurt?"
There was no reply, and the cleanly cut, aristocratic features of the man looked very stony and fixed.
"I don't think he's shamming, mate," whispered the warder, "but cover him with your piece; I don't want to be hurt."
It was an awkward place to use a rifle, but the warder addressed altered his position a little, and brought the muzzle of his piece to bear on the convict's breast.
"Well, you two below there," shouted the governor. "What do you make out?"
"One moment, sir. Ugh! No shamming here, mate. Feel his head."
"Take your word for it," said the other gruffly.
"Let's have your rope, then, and send him up."
"Badly hurt?" cried the governor.
"Very, sir," shouted the warder who was manipulating the rope. "Wait a minute," he continued, and, stripping off his tunic, he threw it over the injured man's head, and passed the sleeves under the rope about his chest.
"Mind what you're doing, or he'll slip away."
"He'll slip away if I do mind," muttered the warder. "Here, steady, mate; I only wanted to keep the rocks from chafing you."
For the convict had suddenly torn at the tunic; but his hands dropped again directly, word was given to haul gently, and holding on by either side of the loop about the prisoner's breast, the warders climbed as the rope was hauled, and kept the unfortunate man's head from the rock.
This last was a slower process than the sending up of the first prisoner, but the rest of the warders were searching about still, especially down close to the edge of the sea, in the expectation of seeing the third man hiding among the rocks half covered with the long strands of the slimy fucus that fringed the tide-washed shore. And all the while the two boats made the water glisten, and the blue lights threw up the face of the rock so clearly that, unless he had found some deep, dark, cavernous niche, there was but little chance for an escaping convict to cling anywhere there unseen.
By the time the second man was taken to the shelf a fresh arrival was upon the scene in the person of the jail surgeon, who, fresh from attending sergeant and warder, made a rapid examination of the first prisoner, and then began to open a case by the light of one of the lanterns.
"Dangerous?" said the governor sharply.
"No. Bullet clean through one thigh and the other regularly ploughed. Send for stretchers."
He knelt down as he spoke, and with the convict groaning piteously he rapidly plugged one of his wounds, and bandaged both.
"Now the other," he said; and he turned to the second patient, who was lying, talking quickly, a few yards away.
Just then the governor hailed the men below.
"You must find him, my lads," he cried. "Who heard him plunge in?"
"I did, sir," came back.
"Well, then, he is ashore again somewhere, holding on by the rocks; no man would swim out to sea with such a tide on. He would be carried right away. Keep a good lookout, and if he's wise he will surrender. Well, doctor, this one much hurt?"
"Yes, horribly. Head crushed."
"Not by a bullet?"
"No: fall. How long are those stretchers going to be?"
"Some distance for the men to go, doctor," said the governor quickly. "You forget they were being used for the sergeant and the man."
"Poor fellows! yes," said the doctor, rapidly continuing his manipulations; "there, that is all I can do."
He rose from his knee and stood looking out at the boats below turning the water into silvery blue as port fire after port fire was burned, while others lit up the man-of-war from which the boats had come.
"I'm glad it was not a bullet," said the governor quietly, as his men below searched the rocks and shouted--now to their companions who paid out the rope, now answered hails from the boats.
"Yes; one man's enough to shoot a night," said the surgeon grimly.
"Beg pardon, sir," said a warder, coming up, lantern in hand, and saluting.
"Yes; what is it?"
"I don't think you'll find the other poor chap, sir."
"Why?"
"Blades, who was one of the men here first, and tired, says there was a shriek just before they heard the splash in the water."
"Tut--tut--tut!" ejaculated the governor. "Poor wretch! Where is Blades?"
"Here, sir," said a man who was holding one of the ropes.
"Why didn't you say this before, man?"
"Didn't like to, sir; and besides, I thought the others knew."
"One does not seem to have been enough," whispered the surgeon. "Aynsley, I did not know your men could shoot so well. Hah! the stretchers."
For lanterns were seen approaching, and directly after a party came up with the ambulance apparatus. The two convicts were lifted on and borne off along the path traversed only a short time before by their victims-- one of them groaning piteously; the other lying silent and calm, gazing straight up at the black darkness, while his lips moved slightly from time to time.
"Most unfortunate! most unfortunate!" muttered the governor as soon as he was left alone with his subordinates. "Poor, blind fools! how they rush upon their fate! Well," he shouted, "see him?"
"No, sir. Boats are coming back, sir."
This was plain enough, and a few minutes later both rowed up in close with fresh blue lights illuminating the scene.
"Ahoy! Who's up yonder?" shouted a naval officer.
"I am," cried the governor.
"Oh, you, Sir William! Well, sir, I'll keep my men on if you like, but no swimmer could have got to shore from hereabouts. If there is a man living he must be somewhere on these rocks."
"My men say they have searched thoroughly," said the governor. "Every ledge and crack is well known. There can be no one here."
"Shall we patrol the place a little longer?"
The governor was silent for a few moments, and then, feeling that all possible had been done, he gave the word for the search to be given up, but sent half a dozen men to patrol the road leading to the mainland, feeling all the while that it was a hopeless task.
By this time the last man had climbed up from the dangerous cliff side, the ropes were coiled, and the party marched off toward the prison--the governor last--leaving the sentinel warder to his beat with the company of another man.
These two stood in silence till the footsteps had died out on the rocky path and the last blue light had ceased to send golden drops into the hissing water as the boats made for the man-of-war.
"Black night's work this, Jem," said the companion sentry. "Two of 'em gone and three wounded."
"No, no; not so bad as that."
"Yes, bad as that. Yon chap on the stretcher won't see to-morrow morning, and that other poor chap who shrieked when we fired went into the water like a stone. It was your shot did that."
"Ugh! I hope not," said the warder, with a shudder. "Seems to me time I tried another way of getting my bread and cheese. Hark!"
"What at?"
"That. Someone hailed off the water. Quite low and faint, like a man going down."
The clouds were lifting slowly in the east, and the misty, blurred face of the moon began to show in the east, over the brimming water's rim. _