The Adventures of Harry Revel

by Arthur Quiller-Couch

I supposed myself but half-way down this slope, or only a little more, when in springing aside to avoid a low bush I missed footing altogether; went hurling down into night, dropped plumb upon another furze-bush—a withered one—and heard and felt it snap under me; struck the cliff-side, bruising my hip, and slid down on loose stones for another few yards. As I checked myself, sprawling, and came to a standstill, some of these stones rolled on and splashed into water far below.

For a minute or so, at full length on this treacherous bed, I could pluck up no heart to move. Then, inch by inch at first, I drew myself up to the broken bush and found beside it a flat ledge, smooth and grassy, which led inland and downwards. I think it must have been a sheep-track. I kept to it on hands and knees, and it brought me down to the head of a small cove where a faint line of briming showed the sea's edge rippling on a beach of flat grey stones.

My hip was hurting me, and I could run no farther. I groped along the base of the eastern cliff and crawled into a shallow cave close by a pile of seaweed which showed the high mark of the tide now receding. With daylight I might discover a better hiding-place. Meanwhile I snuggled down and drew a coverlet of seaweed over me for warmth.

CHAPTER XII.

I FALL AMONG SMUGGLERS.

I awoke to a most curious sensation. The night was still black and only the ridge of the cliff opposite showed, by the light of the many stars, its dull outline above; yet I felt that the whole beach had suddenly become crowded with people—that they were moving stealthily about me, whispering, picking their way among the loose stones, hunting me and yet hushing their voices as though themselves afraid.

At first, you may be sure—wakened as I was from sleep—I had no doubt but that this unseen band of folk was after me. All that followed my awakening passed so quickly that I cannot separate dreams now from guesses nor apprehensions from realities. I do remember, however, that, whereas the soldiers from whom I had run had been on foot, my first fears were of a pursuit by cavalrymen, and therefore it seems likely that some sound of horses' trampling must have set them in train: but, though I strained my ears, they detected nothing of the sort—only a subdued murmur, as of human voices, down by the water's edge, and now and again the cautious crunch of a footstep upon shingle. Even this I had not heard but for the extreme quiet on the sea under the off-shore wind.

Gradually, by the light of the stars, I separated from the surrounding shadows that of a whole mass of people inert and darkly crowded there: and then—almost as I guessed their business—the cliff above me shot up a flame; and their forms and their dismayed upturned faces stood out distinct in the glare of it.

"Loose the horses and clear!" yelled someone; and another voice deep and wrathful began to curse, but was drowned by a stampede of hoofs upon the shingle. Straight forth from the sea—or so it looked to me—some twenty or thirty naked horses, without rider, bit, or bridle, broke from the crowd and came plunging up the beach at a gallop. They were met by a roar from the cove-head, and with that a line of glittering helmets and cuirasses sprang out of the night and charged past me.