Sappers and Miners Part 8

"No, no, it was not a gull," cried Joe.

"I did not say it weer," replied Hardock. "You can think what you like, but I only says, 'Wheer is he?'"

"He must be somewhere here," cried Joe; and he climbed about in all directions for some time, and only gave up when he felt how impossible it was that his comrade could be anywhere near.

"Theer, come on down, my lad," said Hardock at last.

"It's impossible for anyone to be here. There aren't a hole big enough to hide a rabbit, let alone a boy."

They descended slowly toward the lower part of the slope, near the cliff edge. Here Joe stopped short, for faintly, but perfectly distinct, came the words, "Joe, ahoy!" and certainly from behind him.

"There, I knew he was up there!" cried the lad, excitedly; "come back.

I was sure of it."

He scrambled back as fast as he could, and Hardock followed him, frowning, and stood looking on, while his companion searched once more in every possible direction without avail.

"Ahoy, Gwyn. Y-doll!" he shouted through his hands. "Where are you?"

There was no reply, and after more searching and shouting, and with the man's superst.i.tious notions beginning to affect him, Joe stopped and gazed blankly in his face.

"Well, d'yer begin to believe me now, my lad?" whispered Hardock.

"I can't help--" began the lad; and then he burst out with an emphatic.

"No, it's all nonsense! Gwyn must be here. Ahoy, Ydoll! Where are you?"

His voice died away, and in obedience to an order from the man, Joe began to descend the rugged slope again towards the green strip, which ran along near the cliff edge.

"It's of no use fighting again' it, my lad," said Hardock, solemnly; "they're a-mocking of you, and you might go on hunting all day long and couldn't find nought. Let's go; we aren't safe here."

"I won't go," cried the boy, "and I won't believe what you think is possible. Gwyn's somewhere about here. Now, think. Where is there that we haven't searched?"

"Nowheres," whispered Hardock, and in spite of the bright sunshine around them he kept on nervously glancing here and there.

"Why, if you go on like that in the middle of the day, Sam," cried the boy, angrily, "what would you do if it was dark?"

"Dark! You don't know a man in Ydoll Cove as would come up here after dark, my lad. It would be more than his life was worth, he'd tell you.

Why, there's not only them in the old mine, but the cliffs swarm with them things as goes raging about whenever there's a storm. I never used to believe in them, but I do now."

"And I don't," said Joe, "and you won't frighten me. It's poor old Gwyn we heard shouting, and there must be an opening somewhere down into the mine."

"Wheer is it, then?" whispered the man. "You've been all over here times enough, and so have I, but I never found no hole 'cept the one big one down."

"No, I never saw one, but there must be. There!" For a faint hail came again from the wall of rock behind them.

"Gwyn, ahoy!" cried Joe as loudly as he could.

"Ahoy!" came back steadily.

"Why, it's an echo," cried Joe, excitedly. "Ahoy! Ahoy!"

"Oy--oy!" came back from the wall, and directly after, much more faintly--"Oy--help!"

"Oh, what fools--what idiots!" cried Joe, excitedly; and certain now of where his comrade was, he went quickly down the slope to the cliff edge and looked over down towards where the sea eddied among the fallen rocks three hundred feet below, and shouted,--"Gwyn!--Gwyn!"

His voice seemed lost there; but as he listened there came faintly a reply in the one appealing cry--"help!"

But it was away to his right, where the rocks rose up rugged and broken.

Where he stood the gra.s.s ran right to the edge, but there the granite looked as if it had been built up with large blocks into a mighty overhanging bastion, which rose up fully fifty feet higher; and it was evident that Gwyn had worked his way somewhere out to the cliff face far below this ma.s.s.

"Why there must be an adit," cried Hardock, in a tone full of wonder.

"I never knowed of that."

[Note; an adit is a horizontal shaft driven in from the cliff.]

"Yes, and he's safe--he's safe?" cried Joe; and his manliness all departed in his wild excitement, for he burst into a fit of hysterical sobbing. He mastered his emotion though, directly, and shouted,--

"Hold on! Coming," in the hope of being heard.

He was heard, for, faintly heard from below to their right, came the former appealing word--

"Help!"

"All right," he yelled. "Now, Sam, can I get down there?"

"You'll get to the bottom afore you know it," replied the man. "No."

"Then you must lower me with the rope."

"What, and one o' my knots!" said the man, maliciously.

"Oh, don't talk," cried Joe, "but come on. We must get along to where it's right over him, and then I'll go down. But did you ever see a hole along here?"

"Nay--never!"

"Come on."

Joe led the way inland, and then had to clamber over block after block of tumbled together granite for some fifty yards, when he turned to begin mounting to the hog-back-like ridge which ran out to the great bastion which overhung the sea.

It was an awkward climb--not dangerous, but difficult. Joe's heart was in his work though; and, free now from superst.i.tious dread, Hardock toiled after him, keeping up so that he was at his shoulder when the boy lay down on his chest and looked over the edge.

For a few moments he could see nothing but ledge and jutting block, whitened by the sea-birds which here brought up their young in peace, for even the reckless boys had looked upon it as too hazardous to descend. The sea far below was just creaming among the rocks which peered above the water, and ran out in a reef causing a dangerous race; but though Joe searched the whole cliff face below him for nearly a minute he could see nothing, and at last he shouted with all his might and had a lesson in the feebleness of the human voice in that vast expanse.

"Ahoy!"

"Ahoy!" came up from below as faintly as the cry which evoked it.

"I can't see him," said Hardock, shading his eyes as he peered down.