"That decides it; we are going over to inspect. Send down the rope with a loop in it, and leave it there to get back quickly if there's need; but you must tread like a cat, and for the life of you don't speak!"
"It's a big risk!" exclaimed Fisher, whose foresight in this matter was sharper than the other's, and who feared exceedingly. But the man was impatient.
"There's no risk if you do exactly as I do," said he. "Give me your end of the rope, and help me up again."
He was at the gate again with this, and there he hitched the line to a whole spike, and, forcing two others from their place—for the gate was exceedingly rotten—he swung himself lightly down, and gave a sign to the lad that he should come upon the parapet, Fisher following him nimbly with a silent activity which was characteristic of his strength; and the two quickly stood together upon the roof, and looked down sheer to the tremendous depths below.
The scene then spread below them was one so unlooked-for and so weird and so strange that they may well have contemplated it in silence for many minutes. There was, as they had thought, a vast chasm with a lake of water at the foot of it; but its depth when thus looked down upon seemed infinitely beyond anything they had anticipated; and the uprising walls of rock presented sheer precipices, which were amazing in their grandeur and their height. Yet was this work of nature of poor interest for them by the side of the human activity to be observed below. At the landward end of the creek, where there was the mouth of a tunnel leading, as they supposed, from the lagoon into the very heart of the cliff, a fleet of row-boats and of luggers lay moored; and the crews passed to and fro to puny and wharf-like ledges upon either side of the great orifice, which was all lit up by the flare of torches and echoing with the hailing of seamen and the buzz of voices. What with the flickering light upon the dark water, and the reek of the smoke, and the sight of savage faces, and the shout of orders, and the forbidding aspect of the vast passage, the whole came upon the two men watching like a revelation, and they lay spellbound and speechless, unable to turn back for very curiosity, yet afraid almost to move, lest a false step should cost them their lives;
They were (as I say) perched upon the roof of a stone building, encased in the very side of the cliff; but they perceived, when they looked from this, that a comparatively wide path ran along the side of the ravine some thirty feet below them, and the house, or whatever it was, upon which they stood had a frontage to the path; yet from its dilapidation they judged that it was now not used, and that thus their position was less dangerous than they had at first thought. So plain was this at last that Messenger began boldly to crawl the whole length of the parapet, and when he had come to the far end, he, crouching down very close upon the stone, beckoned the lad to follow him; and there they came together upon a wooden trap-door, half lifted from its resting-place, and so permitting them, when the light was good enough, to see the interior of the room below them. But they beheld only a windowless and reeking chamber, barred, it is true, against egress with stout iron bars, yet having its door open and squeaking upon its hinges ; and they were about to turn away when Fisher's quick eyes discovered that which they had not seen, but which conveyed so dismal a warning.
"Look," said he; "I could swear that a man lay in the corner by the door!"
"I can see nothing," said Messenger; "you're discovering the shadow of the trap."
"No, it isn't that; shift the trap gently and you'll see it for yourself."
They moved the wooden lid of the aperture, and then the sight was plain. A body lay upon the floor—across the very threshold, in fact—but it was the body of a dead man; and when the light was full enough they saw that the man was Parker, the humble mate of the Semiramis.
"Good God!" said Messenger, "it's the mate; how did he get in this hole?"
"He must have been saved from the ship," said Fisher. "Poor old Parker; he was one of the few decent ones among them."
"Well," said the man, "he'll want decent burial, any way; and I'll tell you that it's just about time we went back again."
"As you say," said Fisher, and at that he turned to crawl back from the place; but the movement was a clumsy one, and, striking the wooden trap-door with his arm, he sent it clattering and whirling to the water below. No sooner had it fallen than a shout went up from the depths, and the two knew how great their folly had been; for while they talked dawn had come, and their figures were observed by the horde below, who yelled with ferocity at the very sight of them.
XXI. FLIGHT TO THE SEA
While he stood, no longer crouching, but upright with defiance of the danger, Messenger took a swift survey of his environment. Immediately above him the rock rose to a height of thirty feet, but with a sheer face which forbade any attempt to swarm it; in front was the abyss, with a throng of men gesticulating and roaring like wolves who hunger at the bottom of it. His first thought, naturally, was one which hesitated about a return by the ravine which led to the haven, lest that should disclose their hiding-place; but, failing this, there was only the path twenty feet below him, and whether or no this would, even could they reach it, bring them to the sea he knew not. A rifle shot, which rang past his head and struck the rock with a sharp "ping," decided him.
"It must be the gate or nothing," said he; "and we'll have to run for it when we get down. Over you go, Hal, or they'll be hitting you!"
The fear of the latter words was not justified. The projection of the roof put the men momentarily out of sight, and Fisher was in comparative security when he grasped to pull himself up. One mighty haul he gave with his brawny arms, but not a second; for the spike had cut the strands of the line, and the lad rolled upon his back with a short length of it still in his hands.
In the face of this new disaster the two, for the moment, stood without idea or speech. So steep, indeed, so overhanging, was the rock on the hither side of the gate that it was idle even to venture the effort of climbing it; and no words from one man to the other were needed to express the whole of the danger. There it was in all its nakedness. Before them was the rock; below them was the chasm; and, as they soon learned, there were men now coming up the goat path toward the house in which they were. But at this Messenger began to run distractedly up and down the roof again, and as soon as he showed himself another bullet struck against the parapet; and the howls of the savage horde were louder and more fierce.
Now at this supremity of the crisis, and when two of the men running upon the path were within fifty paces of the stone house, but fortunately bearing no arms, Messenger looked up at the cliff above the end of the building which was furthest from the gate, and saw that it was less steep than the precipice which forbade his return to the haven. At any other time he would have deemed a man who attempted to climb it nothing less than a lunatic; but now, with a desperation which was born of the position, he clutched at this straw and dared the hazard.
"Hal," said he, "I'm going up the cliff, there. Will you come?"
"I'll try," said Fisher laconically; but the Prince gave him no opportunity for answer. He had already sprung up at the rock, clutching it with a fierce, nervous grip, and pulling himself from bush to bush with a frenzy which reckoned with no danger and was swift in its success. Indeed, before the lad himself could move, the other was half-way to the summit, hanging, as it seemed, against the perpendicular face of the rock, and above a precipice two hundred feet in depth; and still he went on where one would have said no man could go—on where a false step would have sent him reeling down to death on the crags below—and Fisher's head whirled at the sight, and be declared to himself that he could not follow, though his life hung upon the venture.
For my own part, I am led to believe that the younger man would never have dared this flight had it not been for the sudden appearance of one of the Spaniards at the trap-door in the roof. Just as