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In the King's Name: The Cruise of the "Kestrel", a fiction by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 32. Hilary Gets In A Queer Fix |
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_ CHAPTER THIRTY TWO. HILARY GETS IN A QUEER FIX With his heart throbbing with joy Hilary now proceeded to reverse his performance, for, taking off his jacket once more, he enveloped the burning lantern, picked up the other that was emitting an abominable odour, and hastily carried them back to the hollow where he found them. It was so dark that he was doubtful whether he had found the right place, but he kicked against another lantern, and that convinced him. Placing the burning one on the ground, he relit the other, his hands trembling so that he hardly knew what he did, and impeded himself to no slight degree. He succeeded, however, and had just set the second lantern down as nearly as he could remember, when he fancied he heard a sound as of some one snoring, and glancing in the direction, he saw to his horror that a man was lying there asleep. For a few moments he felt paralysed, and stood there holding his jacket in his hand unable to move, as he asked himself whether that man had been there when he spoke and took the lights. As he stood there wondering, he heard a voice call "Jem!" in a low tone; and this roused Hilary, who dropped down and crept away, glancing to seaward as he did so, where the cutter's lights--if it was she--once more brightly burned. He did not dare to go far, but lay flat upon the turf, listening as someone came up; and then there was a dull noise as of a man kicking another. "Get up, Jem! Do you hear! Why, what a fellow you are to sleep!" "Hullo! Oh, all right," said another voice; and now Hilary could see two men standing, their figures plainly shown against the lantern's light. "Oh, yes; it's all very well to say 'Hullo!' and 'All right!'" grumbled the first voice; "I never see such a fellow to sleep." "Have you done?" said the sleepy one yawning. "Done? No; nor half done; she's got a heavy cargo. If we get done in three hours we shall have worked well. Put out them candles, and come and haul." The lights were extinguished; and Hilary, wondering at his escape, felt his heart bound with joy, for by that time the crews of a couple of boats must have been mustered on the _Kestrel's_ deck, and in another five minutes they would be pulling, with muffled oars, towards the shore. "Ah! if I were only in command of one!" cried Hilary to himself; "but as I am not, can I do anything more to help our fellows besides bringing them ashore?" It was a question that puzzled him to answer, and he lay there on the turf wondering what it would be best to do, ending by making up his mind to creep down as cautiously as he could in the direction taken by the two men. "The worst that could happen to me," he thought, "would be that I should be taken; and if I am made prisoner once more, it will only be in the cause of duty--so here goes." The darkness favoured him as far as concealment was concerned, but it had its disadvantages. A little way to his left was the edge of the cliff, and Hilary knew that if he were not careful he would reach the shore in a way not only unpleasant to himself, but which would totally spoil him for farther service; so he exercised as much caution for self-preservation as he did to keep himself hidden from his enemies. There was a well-beaten track, and, following this, he found the descent was very rapid into a little valley-like depression, from the bottom of which came the faint creak of a pulley now and then, with mingled sounds of busy men going to and fro with loads, which they seemed to be, as he judged, carrying up to carts somewhere at the head of the ravine. He could see very little, the darkness was so great; but his keen sense of hearing supplied the want of sight; and as he lay beside a clump of what seemed to be furze, he very soon arrived at a tolerably good idea of what was going on. Still he was not satisfied. He wanted to realise more thoroughly the whole procedure of the smugglers, so that if the present attempt should prove a failure he might be in a position to circumvent them another time. It was a great risk to go any nearer, and it might result in capture, perhaps in being knocked down; but he determined to go on, especially as it grew darker every minute, the stars being completely blotted out by a curtain of cloud that came sweeping over the sky. He hesitated for a few moments, and then crept on, listening intently the while. The smugglers were still some distance off, down towards the edge of the lower cliff; and he crept nearer and nearer, till to his horror he found that the clearness of the part about him was only due to the cessation of the carrying for a few minutes, and now a party seemed to be coming up from the cliff edge, apparently loaded, while, when he turned to retreat, he found by the sound of voices that another party was coming down. His manifest proceeding then was to get out of the track, but, to his horror, he found that he was down in a rift between two high walls of rock, and his first attempt to climb up resulted in a slip back, scratching his hands, and tearing his clothes. Before he could make a second attempt he was seized by a pair of strong arms and forced down upon his knees; and dimly in the gloom he could make out that he was pretty well surrounded by rough-looking men. "Caught you, have I?" said a deep voice. Hilary remained silent. It was of no avail to struggle, and he reserved his strength for a better opportunity to escape. He thought of shouting aloud to the boats, which he hoped were now well on their way; but he restrained himself, as he felt that the success of their approach depended upon their secrecy, so he merely hung down his head, without offering the slightest resistance. He had his reward. "Get up, you lazy, skulking lubber!" cried his captor, "or I'll rope's-end you." This, by the way, was rather cool language, especially after forcing the captive down upon his knees. "Here are we to work like plantation niggers at the oars, rowing night and day, and you 'long-shore idlers leave us to do all the work." "Why, he takes me for one of their party," thought Hilary; and, dark though it was, he felt astonished at the man's stupidity, for it did not occur to him then that he was hatless, that his hair was rough, his face and hands anything but clean, and his old uniform shrunken by his immersion, and so caked with mud and dirt, and withal so torn and ragged, that even by broad daylight anyone would have strongly doubted that he was a king's officer, while in the gloom of that ravine he could easily be taken for a rough-looking carrier belonging to their gang. "Come on," said the man hauling him along, "I've got a nice little job for you. I don't care for your sulky looks. Go it, my lads. Got the lot?" he continued, as a line of loaded men filed past them, they having to stand back against the rock to let the burdened party pass. "All? no; nor yet half," was the reply. "There, get on." "All right. Take it easy," was the reply; and, trying hard to make out the surroundings, Hilary made no resistance, but let himself be hurried along down the declivity they were in, till he found himself on a platform of trampled earth, where, as far as he could make out against the skyline, a rough kind of shears was rigged up, and, by means of a block, a couple of men were hauling up packages, and another was landing them upon the platform, and unfastening and sending down the empty hooks. "Here, one of you carry now," said Hilary's captor, "and let this joker haul. I found him trying to miche, and nipped him as he was skulking off. Lay hold, you lazy lubber, and haul." One of the men left the rope, and assuming a sulky, injured manner, Hilary took his place at the rope, and, upon the signal being given, hauled away with his new companion, who gave a grunt indicative of satisfaction, as he found how well Hilary kept time with him, bringing his strength to bear in unison with the other's, so that they worked like one man. "Ah, that's better!" he said. "I've been doing all the work." They had brought a keg above the cliff edge, and this being detached, Hilary's captor mounted it upon his shoulders, and the man who had been hauling in Hilary's place took up a package and they began to move off. "Let me know if he don't work," said the rough-voiced man. "I'll soon be back. Mind he don't slip off." "All right," said Hilary's companion. "Haul," said a voice, and they pulled up another keg, while the tramping of men could be plainly heard below, telling Hilary of what was going on. "Why," he thought, as he worked steadily on, "this is where they hauled me up, the rascals; and now--" He could not help laughing to himself at the strange trick Fate had played him in setting him, a naval officer, helping a party of smugglers to land their cargo; but all the same, he gloried in the amount of information he was picking up for some future time. "I don't seem to know you," said the man beside him at last, after they had hauled up several packages and kegs. "Did old Allstone send you to help?" This was a poser, and Hilary paused for a moment or two before saying frankly: "No; he didn't want me to come." "Ah! he's a nice 'un," growled the other. "I wish I'd my way; I'd make him work a little harder. He's always skulking up at the old manor." Hilary uttered a low grunt, and in the intervals of hauling he strained his eyes to grasp all he could of his surroundings; but there was very little to see. He could make out that he was at the edge of a lower part of the cliff; that the rock-strewn beach was, as far as he could make out by the hauling, some forty feet below; that the platform where he stood was the sea termination of a gully, where probably in wet weather a stream ran down and over the edge in a kind of fall, while on either side the cliff towered up to a great height. There was not much to learn, but it was enough to teach him what he wanted to know, and it quite explained the success of the smugglers in evading capture. Hilary had strained his eyes again and again seaward; but, save that the cutter's lights were burning brightly in the darkness, there was no sign of coming help, though, for the matter of that, a fleet of small boats might have landed and been unseen from where he stood. The man's suspicions seemed to have been lulled, and Hilary kept on hauling. The men came and went from where they were to the carts that he judged to be waiting, and those below, like dim shadows just seen now and then, toiled on over the rocks, but still no sign of the cutter's boats, and in despair now of my such capture as might have been made, Hilary was thinking that when a suitable opportunity occurred he would seize hold of the hook with one hand, retain the hauling rope in the other, and let himself rapidly down, when there was a shrill chirruping whistle from below, the scrambling of feet, and a voice from the beach said sharply: "Quick there! Luggers ahoy! Look out!" _ |
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