“An’ I hopes you may, Skipper Arch,” said Billy.
It was a fine wish, born of the fresh breeze and brightness of the day—a word let drop from a heart full of good feeling for all the world: nothing more. Yet within a few hours Billy Topsail’s life hung upon the possibility of its fulfillment.
“Ay,” he repeated, “I hopes you may.”
Billy Topsail followed the rocky road to the Bath Tub, climbed the Lookout, and descended the rough declivity beyond to the edge of the sea, meanwhile lifted to a joyous mood by the sunlight and wind and cloudless sky. Indeed, he was not sorry he had come; the grim cliffs and the jagged masses of rock lying at their feet—the thunder and froth where sea met rock—the breaking, flashing water to seaward; all this delighted him then, and were not soon forgotten. Best of all, the third submerged rock off Shag Cliff—the rock they call the Tombstone—was breaking; the greater waves there leaped into the air in fountains of froth.
“I ’low I’ll get closer t’ the Tombstone,” thought he.
Thus he was led along the coast to the foot of Shag Cliff. It was a hard climb, in which hands and feet were both concerned. There were chasms to leap, sharp points to round, great rocks to scale, narrow ledges to pass over on the toes of his boots; and all the while the breakers were crashing and foaming below him, and now and again splashing him with spray.
Had the day been drear, it may be he would not have ventured so far; but the sun was out, the day long, the gulls quietly soaring over the sea, and on he went, giving no thought whatever to his return.
Once under the cliff, he ventured farther. Detached from it, there lies Nanny’s Rock, which must long ago have fallen from above; the breakers surrounded but did not sweep it when they rose and broke.
His wish to lie there in the sunshine, with the blue sky above him and the noise of the water in his ears, led him to dash across the dripping space between when the wave fell back, even though he must scramble out of the way of the returning water.
In a few minutes he was deep in an enchanting day-dream, which, to his subsequent peril, soon changed to sleep.
The tide was rising. A few drops of spray, falling upon his face from a great breaker, awoke him. On the instant he was wide awake and looking desperately about. Then he laughed to think that the breakers were reaching for him—that they would have had him fast in the trap had he slept much longer; for, in a glance, he thought he had made sure that his escape from the rock was not yet cut off. But his laugh was touched with some embarrassment when he found, upon trial, that the sea had blocked the path by which he had reached the foot of Shag Cliff.
“I must go ’tother way,” he thought.
There was no other way; to right and to left the sea was breaking against overhanging juts of rock. He could pass from jut to jut, but he could round neither.
“Sure, I’ll be late for dinner,” he thought; “an’ dad won’t like it.”
It was all very well to exclaim vexatiously, but he was forced to abandon the hope of returning by way of the foot of the cliffs. The tide had cut him off.
“I’ll scale Shag Cliff,” he determined.
He was not alarmed; the situation was awkward, but it promised the excitement of an adventure, and for a time he was rather glad that he had fallen asleep. To scale the two hundred feet of Shag Cliff—that was something to achieve! His father would say that he was “narvy,” and forget that he had kept him from his dinner. Scale Shag Cliff, by all means!
He knew well enough that he had but to seek higher ground and wait for the tide to fall, if he wanted an unexciting return; but it pleased him to make believe that his situation was desperate—that the rising water would overwhelm him if he did not escape over the brow of the cliff: an indulgence which his imagination did not need half an hour later. When he looked up, however, to choose a path of ascent, he found that, from where he stood, close against the cliff at the base, there seemed to be no path at all.
“I ’low I’ll have t’ go back t’ Nanny’s Rock for a better squint,” he told himself.
Back to Nanny’s Rock he went, at no small risk, for the occasional flow of foam, which had cut it off from the mainland when first he crossed, had swollen to a strait of some depth and strength. He must make the leap, but he dreaded it. There was a moment of terror when his foot slipped, and he came near falling back into the very claws of the breaker which followed him; on that account, perhaps, his survey of the face of the cliff was a hurried one, and his return to safe ground precipitate and somewhat flurried.
He had seen enough, however, to persuade him that the ascent would be comparatively easy for at least a hundred feet, and that, for the rest of the way, it would not, probably, be much more difficult.
In point of fact, he knew nothing whatever of what lay beyond the first hundred feet. But the element of probability, or rather improbability, did not disconcert him. He could at least make a start.
If you have ever climbed about a rocky sea-coast, you will know that an ascent may be comparatively simple where a descent is quite impracticable; you will know that the unwary may of a sudden reach a point where to continue the climb is a nauseating necessity. There are times when one regrets the courage that led him into his difficulty—the courage or the carelessness, as the case may be.
Experience had long ago taught Billy Topsail that; but the lesson had not been severe—there had been no gulf behind him; the whip of life or death had not urged him on. Indeed, he had never attempted a climb of such height and ugly possibilities in the way of blind leads as Shag Cliff, else possibly he should not have made the start with a sense of adventure so inspiring.
Up he went—up and still up, his cheeks glowing, his nerves pleasurably tingling! Up—up and still up, until he could hear the whiz of gulls’ wings near him, and the feeling of space below began to try his nerves. At last he stopped to rest and look about. Down deep lay the breakers, so far off, it seemed, that he marvelled he could hear the roar and crash so distinctly.
“An’ they says ’tis a hundred feet!” thought he. “Hut! ’Tis two hundred if ’tis an inch. An’ I isn’t but half way up!”
Beyond that point his difficulties began. The cliff was bolder; it was almost bare of those little ledges and crevices and projections upon which the cliff-climber depends for handhold and foothold. Moreover, the path was interrupted from time to time by sheer or overhanging rock. When he came to these impassable places, of course, he turned to right or left, content with his progress if only he mounted higher and higher. Thus he strayed far off the path he had picked out from Nanny’s Rock; indeed, he was climbing blindly, a thoughtless course, for—had he but stopped to think—there was no knowing that the cliff did not overhang at the end of the way he had taken.
Meanwhile, time was passing. He had climbed with such caution, retraced his steps, changed his course so often that noon was long past. So when next he came to a roomy ledge he sat down to rest before proceeding farther.
“Wonderful queer!” he thought, after a look about. “But where is I?”
It was a puzzling question. The cliff, projecting below him, cut off his view of the breakers; and the rock above, which came to an end in blue sky, was of course unfamiliar. At what part of Shag Rock he then was he could not tell.
CHAPTER VI
In Which Billy Topsail Loses His Nerve. Wherein, also, the Wings of Gulls Seem to Brush Past
“Wonderful queer!” thought Billy Topsail. “Lost on a cliff! ’Tis the queerest thing I ever knowed.”
But that was Billy’s case.
“I ’low,” he concluded, at last, “that I’d better be goin’ up instead o’ down.”
It did not appear that he would be unable to go down; the way up was the shorter way, that was all. Nevertheless, his feeling of security was pretty well shaken when he again began to climb. His grip was tighter, his shrinking from the depths stronger and more frequent; in fact, he hugged the rock more than was good for him.
He knew t
he symptom for an alarming one—it turned him faint when first he recognized it—and he tried to fix his attention upon the effort to climb higher. But now and again the fear of the space behind and below would creep in. Reason told him that the better part was to return; but he was in no condition to listen to reason. His whole desire—it was fast becoming frantic—was to crawl over the brow of the cliff and be safe.
But where was the brow of the cliff? It seemed to him that he had climbed a thousand feet.
A few minutes later he caught sight of a shrub; then he knew that he was within a few feet of the end of the climb. The shrub—a stunted spruce, which he had good reason to remember—was to his right, peeping round a projection of rock.
He was then on a ledge, with good foothold and good handhold; and a way of return to the shore lay open to him. By craning his neck he made out that if he could pass that projection he would reach shelving, broken rock, and be safe. Then he studied the face of the rocks between—a space of some six feet.
There was foothold there, midway, but he shrank from attempting to reach it. He had never thought in his life to try so perilous a passage. A survey of the course of a body falling from that point was almost more than he could support. Nevertheless, strange as it may seem, the waving shrub tempted him to risk something more to end his suspense. He summoned courage enough to stretch out his right foot and search with his right hand for a hold.
Unfortunately, he found both—a ledge for his foot and a crevice for his fingers.
He drew himself over. It took courage and strength, for it was a long stretch. Had he been cramped for room, had he not been free to move at the starting-point, he could not have managed it. But there he was—both feet on a ledge as wide as his feet were long, both hands with a comfortable grip on solid rock. He shuffled along until he came to the end of the ledge.
His last obstacle now lay before him. He must round the projection which divided him from the broken, shelving rock beyond. Had he foreseen the slightest difficulty he would not have gone so far. So, with confidence, he sought a foothold for his right foot—a crevice for the fingers of his right hand.
And he tried again, with confidence unshaken; again, with patience; again, with rising fear. There was no hold; the passage was impracticable. There was nothing for it but to return.
So he shuffled back to the other end of the ledge. Then, keenly regretting the necessity of return, he sought a foothold for his left foot—a crevice for the fingers of his left hand. He tried again, in some wonder; again, with a rush of fear; again, in abject terror.
To his horror, he found that he could not return. From the narrow ledge it was impossible to pass to the wider, although it had been possible to pass from the wider to the narrow. For an instant he was on the point of toppling back; but he let his body fall forward against the face of the cliff, and there he rested, gripping the rock with both hands until the faintness passed.
The situation was quite plain to him. He was standing on a ledge, as wide as his feet were long, some two or three hundred feet above the sea; his face was to the cliff, and he could neither sit down nor turn round. There he must stand until—who could tell? In what way could relief come to him? Who was to see? Who could hear his cries for help? No fishermen were on the grounds—no punts were out of the harbour; the sea was too high for that, as he had been told.
There was only one answer to his question. He must stand until—he fell.
“Yes,” he was courageous enough to admit calmly, “I ’low I got t’ go.”
That once admitted, his terror of that space behind and below in some measure departed. The sun was still shining; the sky—as he knew, for he could catch a glimpse of it on each side—was still blue. But soon he began to think of the night; then his terror returned—not of the present moment, but of the hours of darkness approaching.
Could he endure until night? He thought not. His position was awkward. Surely his strength would wear out—his hands weaken, although the strain upon them was slight; his legs give way.
Of course he followed the natural impulse to cling to his life as long as he could. Thus, while the afternoon dragged along and the dusk approached, he stood on the face of the cliff, waiting for the moment when his weakening strength would fail and he would fall to his death.
“In an hour,” he thought; soon it was, “In half an hour.”
Before that last half-hour had passed he felt something brush past his back. It frightened him. What was it? Again he felt it. Again it startled and frightened him. Then he felt it no more for a time, and he was glad of that. He was too dull, perhaps, to dwell upon the mystery of that touch. It passed from his mind. Soon he felt it for the third time. Was it a wing? He wondered, too, if he had not heard a voice; for it seemed to him that some one had hailed him.
When next he heard the sound, he knew that his name had been called. He looked up. A rope was hanging over the brow of the cliff, sweeping slowly towards him. He could see it, although the light was failing. When it came near he extended his right hand behind him and caught it, then gave it a tug, in signal to those above that the search was ended. Painfully, slowly, for his situation was none too secure, he encircled his waist with that stout rope, lashed it fast, shouted, “Haul away!” and fainted.
* * * *
When Billy Topsail came to his senses, it was to find himself lying on the moss, with old Arch, the skipper, leaning over him, and half a dozen fishermen gathered round.
“So you did get out to the salmon net?” he muttered.
“Aye,” said Arch; “’twas I that seed you hangin’ there. Sure, if I hadn’t had my net set off Shag Rock, and if I hadn’t got through the tickle to see if ’twas all right, and if—”
Billy shuddered.
CHAPTER VII
In Which Billy Topsail Hears the Fur Trader’s Story of a Jigger and a Cake of Ice in the Wind
“Wouldn’t think I’d been born on Cherry Hill, would you, now?” said the man with the fur cap.
The stranger had been landed at Ruddy Cove from Fortune Harbour. He had been in the far north, he said; and he was now waiting for the mail-boat to take him south. Billy Topsail and the lads of Ruddy Cove cocked their ears for a yarn.
“Fact!” said he, with a nod. “That’s where I was born and bred. And do you know how I come to be away up here? No? Well, I’m a fur trader. I’m the man that bought the skin of that silver fox last winter for thirty dollars and sold it for two hundred and fifty. I’d rather be the man that bought it from me and sold it in London for six hundred. But I’m not.”
“And you’re bound for home, now?” the old skipper asked.
“Yes,” he drawled. “I’m bound home for New York to see the folks. I’ve been away six years, and came nearer to leaving my bones up here in the north last spring than ever I did before. I’ve done some travelling in my time. You can take me at my word; I have.”
The trader laughed uproariously. He was in a voluble mood. The old skipper knew that he needed but little encouragement to tell the story of his escape.
“It makes me think about that old riddle of the corked bottle,” he said. “Ever hear it? This is it: If you had a bottle of ginger ale, how would you get the stuff out without breaking the bottle or drawing the cork? Can you answer that?”
“The answer doesn’t strike me,” said the skipper.
“That’s just it,” the trader burst out. “The way to do it doesn’t ‘strike you.’ But if you had the bottle in your hands now and wanted the ginger ale, it would ‘strike’ you fast enough to push the cork in. Well, that was my case. You think of yourself on a little pan of ice, drifting straight out to sea with a strong offshore wind, water all round you and no paddle—just think of yourself in that case, and a way of getting ashore might not ‘strike’ you. But once you’re there—once you’re right on that pan of ice, with the hand of death on your collar—you’ll think like lightning of all the things you can do. Yes, that was my case.”
The l
isteners said nothing to interrupt the stocky, hard-featured, ill-clad little man while he mused.
“‘Don’t you be fool enough to try to cross the bay this evening,’ says I to myself,” he went on.
“But I’m a hundred-mile man, and I’d gone my hundred miles. I can carry grub on my back to last me just that far; and my grub was out. From what I knew of winds and ice, I judged that the ice would be four or five miles out to sea by dawn of the next day. So I didn’t start out with the idea that the trip would be as easy as a promenade over Brooklyn Bridge of a moonlight night. Oh, no! I knew what I was doing. But it was a question of taking the risk or dragging myself into the settlement at Racquet Harbour in three days’ time as lean as a car-horse from starvation. You see, it was forty miles round that bay and four across; and—my grub was out. Many a man loses his life in these parts by looking at the question in just that way.
“‘Oh, no!’ says I to myself. ‘You’d much better take your chance of starving, and walk round.’
“It wasn’t in human nature, though, to do it. Not when I knew that there was grub and a warm fire waiting for me at Racquet Harbour. Says I, ‘I’ll take the long chance and stand to win.’ Don’t you run away with the idea that the ice was a level field stretching from shore to shore, fitting the rocks, and kept as neat as a baseball diamond. It wasn’t. Some day in the winter the wind had jammed the bay full of big rough chunks—they call them pans in this country—and the frost had stuck them all together. When the spring came, of course the sun began to melt that glue, and the whole floe was just ready to fall apart when I had the bad luck to make the coast. I was a day too late. I knew it. And I knew that the offshore wind would sweep the ice to sea the minute it broke up.
“I made the first hundred yards in ten minutes; the second in fifteen more. In half an hour I’d made half a mile. The ice was rough enough and flimsy enough to take the nerve out of any man. But that wasn’t the worst; the worst was that there were hundreds of holes covered with a thin crust of snow—all right to look at, but treacherous. I knew that if I made the mistake of stepping on a crust instead of solid ice, I’d go through and down.
The Sea-Story Megapack: 30 Classic Nautical Works Page 15
