Cormorant Crag Part 62

"Aha!" he cried. "So you sall not try to escape any more?"

"No," said Vince coolly, looking the speaker full in the face. "I say, what time do you have dinner?"

The Frenchman stared at him for a few moments fiercely, and then burst into a boisterous fit of laughter.

"You are a _drole de garcon_" he said. "You are again hungry?"

"I shall be by the time it's ready. But, I say, captain, how much longer are you going to keep us here?"

"Aha!" he said, with a shrug of the shoulders and a peculiar gesticulation with his hand, as if he were throwing something away, while he looked at them both sidewise through his half-closed eyes: "You are fatigue so soon? You vant to go somevere else?"

"We want to go home."

"Good leetler boy: he vant to go home. But not yet, _mes amis_. You give the good capitain all zis pains to move his cargo, and you vill not help."

"Oh, I'm ready enough to help," said Vince. "So's he; but they will be very anxious about us at home."

"Ta ta ta ta ta!" cried the captain. "Vy, you sink so mosh of your selfs. Ze _bon papa_ vill say to _la maman_, 'Ah! _ma chere_, dose boy go and tomble zem selfs off ze cliff;' and ze _maman_ sall wipe her eye and say, '_pauvre garcon_--poor boy, it is vat I expect.'"

"And instead of that," said Vince, "you are going to send us home, and then they will not be fidgeting any more."

"Aha! you sink so. Vell, ve sall see. So I go to be vairy busy, and it is better zat you two do not fight any more. So come vis me."

"Where?" said Vince suspiciously.

"Vere? Oh! you sall see, _mon brave_, vairy soon."

The boys exchanged glances, but feeling that it was hopeless to resist, they followed the captain down to where the boat was lying, just as she had returned a few minutes before, without Daygo.

The men in her were just keeping her afloat, but they ran her stern on to the sand as they saw the captain coming, and one of them leaped out to hold her steady.

"In vis you!" said the captain sharply.

"All right, Mike," whispered Vince. "Come on, and don't seem to mind."

He set the example by putting one foot on the gunwale and springing in lightly. Mike followed, and then the captain; while the man standing ankle-deep in the water waited till they were seated, and then, giving the boat a good thrust out, sprang on the stern, and climbed in as they glided over the transparent water, stepping forward quickly to seize an oar, and pulling sharply with his companion.

The boys gazed eagerly upward as soon as they were clear of the great overhanging archway, and saw the impossibility of escape by any cliff-climbing; for the mighty rocks were at least twenty feet out of the perpendicular, leaning over towards the little bay, whose waters were running, eddying and boiling like a whirlpool as they raced along, seizing the boat's head and seeming about to drag her right along towards a jagged cl.u.s.ter of rocks, standing just above the surface, and amidst which the current raged and foamed furiously.

But the men knew their work. One pulled hard, the other backed water, and by their united efforts the boat was forced into an eddy close under the cliff; and to their amazement the boys found that they were being carried in the opposite direction to that in which the main body of the water was racing along.

"You vill escape and climb ze cliff? No, _mes enfans_," said the captain: "you cannot climb. You vill take my boat to go avay? Aha! you sink so? No, it is not for you to manage ze boat. She vill capsize herself if you try."

Vince said nothing, but eagerly looked around; but it was everywhere the same--the roaring waters tearing wildly along in the crater-like cove, and from their seat in the boat no entrance, no exit, was visible.

"Now I take you bose and drop you ovaire-board: you sink, you go home?"

said the captain, showing his teeth. "Yaas, you go home, but not to see ze _bon papa_, ze _belle maman_. It is not possible. Von of my men say von day he have sick of me, and he vill go. He shump ovaire-board to svim, and he svim vis his arm and leg von, two, twenty stroke, and zen he trow _les mains_ out of ze vater, and he cry for ze boat; but zere vas no boat, and he turn round upon himself two time, and go down a hole in ze vater. I stand and look at him, but he came up again nevaire. He vas a good man--_bon matelot_--but he go. You like to shump in and svim? _Eh bien_, you shake ze hand, shump in. _Au revoir_, but ve shall meet again nevaire. You go? _Non? Eh bien_! I make you ze offaire."

The boys felt that it was all true, and marvelled where they were going, for the eddy was taking them along by the mighty rocks, which were overhanging them again; and, as far as they could make out, the cliffs under which they pa.s.sed and the ridge away facing the cavern mouth, which they had imagined to be an island, were all one.

The captain seemed to be paying little heed to them, sitting with his eyes half-closed; but he was watching them all the time closely, and noted their astonishment as the men suddenly began to tug at their oars with all their might, apparently to avoid a rock, round one side of which the water was rushing with tremendous force, just as if the eddy stream along which they had been riding suddenly curved round it. The men were making for the other end, and as they drew nearer the water roared and splashed up, and it appeared to both that they must be carried right upon it by some undertow.

But every foot of the place, and all its difficulties, were perfectly familiar to the captain's crew, and by making use of the many cross streams and eddies, they were able to guide the boat into safety, as in this case; for just as Mike seized the gunwale with one hand, to be prepared for the shock, and Vince clenched his fists and gave a glance to the left, the boat's prow pa.s.sed the end of the detached rock, they glided into an opening like a gash cut down through the ma.s.sive rock-wall, and the next minute were swept into a comparatively calm pool, surrounded by towering cliffs, which seemed to overlap on their right; and there, right before them, rode by a couple of hawsers attached to great rings fixed in the rock-face behind, a long, low three-masted lugger of the kind known as a _cha.s.se-maree_.

Vince looked sharply round for the channel by which this vessel must come and go--for it seemed certain that such a way must exist, since so large a boat could not by any means have entered the circular cove facing the cavern; and he was not long in seeing that, some twenty or thirty feet beyond her bow, the water was coming swiftly in round the cliff, which lapped over another to its right, but so calmly did the tide run that at the first its motion was unperceived.

Vince had hardly grasped this fact, when the boat was run up alongside, one of the men sprang into the lugger with the boat's painter and made it fast, while the boat seemed to tug to get away, and the captain turned to his prisoners.

"Aboard!" he said sharply; and as there was nothing for it but to obey, Vince made a virtue of necessity, and going forward, climbed up and over the bulwark, to stand upon a beautifully white deck, and see that rigging, sails and spars were all in the highest state of order.

Six or eight men were waiting, and they came aft at once, to stand as if waiting for orders, while Mike and the captain stepped on board.

"Back at once!" said the Frenchman to a stern-looking, red-faced man, who appeared to be the mate. "All ze boats; and work hard to get all on board."

This order was given in a low tone, but Vince's ears were sharpened by his position, and he divined its full meaning.

The men hurried to the side, and rapidly began to lower one of the boats hanging to the davits; while in his close scrutiny Vince grasped the fact that they were upon no peaceful vessel: there being a couple of longish guns forward, and another pair aft, all evidently in the best of trim, and ready for use at a very short notice.

While the men were busy the captain came to where the boys were standing together aft, and laying his hands upon their shoulders, he led them forward to where one of the stout hawsers ran over the side to the great ring secured in the rock.

"You see zat hawser, _mon ami_?" he said.

"Yes," said Vince wonderingly.

"Look you zen at ze ozaire."

"Yes, I see it," said Vince.

"Vat you make of zem?"

"They look strained too much, and as if they would part."

"Good boy! You vould make a good sailor. Zey vill not part, for zey are new, and _tres fort_--strong. Now you look here, _mon ami_."

As he spoke he picked up a heavy dwarf bucket, with its rope attached, raised it above his head, and hurled it some twenty feet into the smooth water between the lugger and the high cliff face.

The water was like gla.s.s, and streaked with fine threads apparently; and the next minute the lads grasped the reason why, for the bucket had hardly touched the water when it began to be borne towards the lugger's side, striking it directly after sharply, and then diving down out of sight.

Vince ran across the deck instantly to see it rise; and Mike followed, the captain joining them to lay his hands upon their shoulders once more.

"Aha! you see him come up again? No? Look _encore_ and _encore_, and you nevaire sall see him. Vat you say to zat?"

"There must be a tremendous current," said Vince. "Yais,--now," said the captain. "_Apres_, some time he run all ze ozaire vay and grind ze sheep close up right to ze rock. Vat you sink now? You shump ovaire, and svim avay? You creep along ze hawser and try to climb up ze cliff?

No, I sink not now. You stay here on ze deck and vait till I vant you-- ven ze boat come back. Dat is vy I show you how go avay ze bucket.

Look now again."

One of the boats was ready, and two men in her. The rope that held her to the side was cast off, and in an instant she glided away across the pool, towards an opening that had been unnoticed before, was deftly steered, and pa.s.sed out of sight.

"Why, she must come out where we saw the water rushing at the other end of the rock!" thought Vince; and he stood watching while the other boats left the side of the lugger, to be cleverly guided to the same spot, and glide out of sight directly.