There was no answer, except that the cry was stifled into a moan, and Lucian turned his face a little towards Sylvester’s hand, pressing his cold cheek against it.
Then Sylvester, clinging on to the shelving rock, shouted with all his strength; and his shout was answered from the down above. What he uttered in his outcry of hope he never knew; but there was an answer back.
“All right! Hold on—we’re coming round.”
There was a dreadful pause, and then on the lower rocks, now bared by the ebbing tide, three young men, in tourist garb, appeared, scrambling round from behind, and came near enough for speech.
“What is it? A fall—are you both hurt? Good heavens! It’s Riddell of Cuthbert’s! There’s footing now—the tide’s going out.”
And in another minute Sylvester was pulled down from his dangerous perch and held up, as he staggered for a moment with cramp and stiffness, by the strong hands of three of his own scholars—youths whose faces at lecture had never greatly interested him, but who seemed now very angels of deliverance.
“Are you hurt, sir? Lean on me, Mr Riddell. We can soon get a boat up to the rocks.”
“Can we reach him? He fell over the cliff.”
The footing was much less secure beneath the spot where Lucian lay, but beneath again was a broad slab of rock now laid bare; and between them all they managed to lift Lucian, now quite senseless, and lay him down with his head on Sylvester’s knee. Then two of the lads went off to get a boat which could be brought up to a little strip of sand below at low tide, and the other remained to give what help he could.
Lucian moved a little again presently, when some whiskey, which the young men were carrying on their walking tour, had been put upon his lips and temples. He knew Sylvester’s voice and whispered—