The Lost Middy Part 43

"What for? Don't I tell you I've heard him before, crying for help? He must have broken an arm or a leg, or he would have climbed back."

"If he could," said the smuggler, grimly. "Here, hold hard a minute.

Don't you stir, on yer life."

"Oh, I'm not going to run any risks!" said Aleck, coolly. "I know it's dangerous."

"Very," said the hunted man, in a peculiar tone and with a peculiar look. "You stand fast, my lad."

He had for some time released his hold of the lad, and turned to re-mount the rock.

"What are you going to do?" said Aleck.

"Hush! Don't shout like that, youngster. Don't I tell you the cutter's men saw me and are after me?"

"Oh, yes; of course," said Aleck, coolly; "but, look here; you hide a bit, and I'll call them."

"What!" gasped the smuggler, in his astonishment. "What for? To take me?"

"No, no! They could help to find the poor fellow lying somewhere below there."

"No, they couldn't," said the man, fiercely. "You be quiet there, I say."

"Well, of course you don't want to be taken, and I don't want them to take you, Eben."

"Say that again, lad," cried the man, excitedly.

"What for? I say I don't want the press-gang to drag you away, even if you are a smuggler."

"Why?" cried the man, excitedly.

"Because it seems so hard on your poor wife."

"Hah-ah-ah!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the man, softly, as he turned away his face and spoke more gently. "You keep quiet here, Master Aleck, while I go and see what the cutter's men are about. I won't be long, and when they've gone I'll help you to find the poor fellow for saying that."

"For saying what?"

"Your words about my poor la.s.s. Master Aleck, I'm a bad 'un, but she don't think so, and if I don't get back to her it'll be the death of the poor gal. Now, after my saying that soft stuff will you go and split upon me?"

"Betray you? No, you know I won't."

"Yes, I know you won't, my lad. You allus was a gentleman, Master Aleck. There, I'm off. I shan't be long, and when I come back I'll help you to find the poor chap as is hurt."

"Thank you, Eben; but mind the men don't take you."

"I'll mind, my lad; but if there's an accident and I don't come back you wait till the cutter's men have rowed me away, and then you go and tell the missus. Say she's to help you find the poor chap as is hurt and get him away."

"But she couldn't climb about here, Eben."

"Better than you can, my lad."

"Very well, then. Thank you," said Aleck, feeling a bit puzzled at the man's words. "In the meantime I'll go on looking for him. He must be somewhere close by."

"No, he isn't," said the man, grimly.

"How do you know?"

"'Cause I do," was the reply, and then, actively as a goat, the smuggler sprang up the rocks and was gone.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

Eben Megg had only just disappeared when the faint, monotonous cry of "Ahoy!" rose once more from below, setting the thoughts buzzing and throbbing about in Aleck's brain in a most extraordinary way. For the lad felt utterly puzzled--he knew not why. He felt that there was something he ought to know, and yet he did not know it, and he failed to grasp the reason why he could not understand it. There was some mystery that he ought to clear up, he felt; but, all the same, simple as it was, he could not find it out.

Like the children playing at a nursery game, he was so close that he was burning, and at one moment he was on the point of being as wise as the smuggler, but just then a loud piercing whistle rang out, followed by answering shouts, and he did grasp at once from whence they came, and waited anxiously, fully expecting to hear more shouts, some of a triumphant character, telling that the fugitive was in view or perhaps caught.

"I oughtn't to mind, of course," he muttered, as he strained his ears to catch the next sound; "but somehow I do, and, as I said, for that poor woman's sake. Ah! They've caught him now. No; it was only an order shouted. Why, they're coming right up here--I can hear them plainly!"

The lad listened excitedly, for though he could see nothing of the sailors he could follow them by the sounds they made and tell that they had spread out over a good deal of ground in their hunt for the escaped man.

Nearer and nearer they came till Aleck felt that they must have reached the ledge from which he had watched the rippling sea, while directly after they were so near to the hiding-place that he could catch a good deal of what was said, the voices ascending and then seeming to curl over and drop down the steep rockside where he stood.

"They haven't caught him yet," thought Aleck, after some few minutes'

beating of the cliff-top and slopes had taken place. "Perhaps they won't catch him, after all, for he must be as cunning as a fox about hiding-places. Why, they must be coming here!" he thought, excitedly, as the voices began to come nearer and nearer. "They'll find me, for certain, and then--

"Well, what then?" he thought, as he came to a sudden stop. "Suppose they do catch me and ask me why I'm here! Why, I can tell them I came to try and find someone whom I heard calling for help; and I can't help what Eben says, I must let the sailors help me then."

He listened, and felt certain that the sailors and their leader came along as far as the great piece of rock he had been obliged to circ.u.mvent, and once round that the men were bound to find him.

"Ahoy!" came faintly again.

"Ahoy yourself!" said a voice. "Who's that so far off? Some fellow has wandered right away and lost himself. Idiot! Why didn't he keep within touch of his messmates? Ahoy, there! Ahoy! Ahoy!"

The cry was answered, and in a few minutes Aleck was able to detect the fact from the dying-away of the voices that the search party were growing more distant, so that the next mournful "Ahoy!" fell upon his ears alone, sounding so despairing that the desire to go in search of the appealer for help was stronger than he could restrain.

Glancing back and upward then at the spot where Eben had disappeared, he went cautiously forward for a few yards, to find to his astonishment that from being fairly broad the rugged shelf along which he was proceeding rapidly narrowed till progress grew risky, while at the end of another dozen feet or so it ceased, and he came to a dead stand, looking in vain for a way forward and a sight of some crack or pa.s.sage along which he could descend towards the sea.

Then he listened for a repet.i.tion of the call for help as a guide to his next proceedings; but all was still save the querulous cry of a gull.

"I can't understand it a bit," he said, looking about him in a more perplexed way than ever. "Eben Megg spoke as if he knew about someone being in trouble; yes, and that if he did not return I was to go to his wife. Why, what nonsense it seems! How could he who has been away for days know anything about--about--oh! Was there ever such a dense, wooden-headed idiot as I am!" he raged out. "Why, of course! I can see now as clear as clear. It's that young middy--what's his name?--calling for help. They must have trapped him during the struggle, and there is a regular smugglers' cave somewhere, after all. The poor fellow must be shut up in it; and that explains why Eben looked so furiously at me when he found me here. He thought I had discovered the secret hiding-place that he was making for. Oh, my word, how plain and easy it all is when you know how! Yes, that's it," he said aloud, excitedly, "and the cutter's people are gone, so I'm not going to hold myself bound by anything I have said to Eben. That poor fellow must have been left to starve in some dark hole, and--no, he hasn't. 'Go to my wife,' he said.

Of course! Because she knew where the prisoner was hid, and--to be sure, she wasn't going to watch for Eben, as I thought, but to take the prisoner something to eat and drink. Talk about wiping the dust out of one's eyes! I've got mine clear now, and that poor fellow has to be found, while, what is more, he must be somewhere down below where I stand."

Aleck's brow ran into lines and puckers as he stood looking about him for a few minutes before hurrying back to the perpendicular crevice he had discovered, and upon reaching it there was the hissing rush of the pebbles and a suggestion of a slapping sound as if water had struck against the rock, but evidently far, far down, while the damp seaweedy odour came cooler and fresher than ever to his nostrils.

"I could get down here," he muttered, "if I were no bigger than a rabbit; but of course this isn't the way. There must be just such a place as this, only many times as big, and I've got to find it."

"Ahoy!" came faintly the next minute, but not up the cavity, and the lad stood puzzled and wondering for a few moments longer, before placing his face as far in as he could, and, breathing in the soft, salt, moist air, he shouted back down the hole, "Ahoy!" as loudly as he could.