“Hold on! hold on, Master Phil!” he shouted. “Shut your eyes and hold on for ten minutes. There’s plenty of foothold there; and if you’ll just keep quiet and not look up or down, we’ll do something for you directly.”
And then, calling the others to follow, he commenced climbing the cliff path with the agility of a goat.
Bertie was not much behind, and Queenie, to whom terror lent wings, arrived closely in their wake. In a basket left up at the top of the cliff was a coil of rope of very fair strength.
David had brought it in case it might be needed, and it was well indeed that he had done so. In a few words he explained his plan.
“It’s no good Master Phil trying to catch the rope if we let it down to him. He’s much too giddy for one thing, and for another the edge overhangs a bit here, and he never could reach it if he hadn’t all his wits about him. I’m going to tie it round my waist and clamber down to him. It’s not easy to get down from the top, but it can be done with a rope round one pretty safely. When I get to him I’ll put the rope on him and you’ll draw him up between you; he’ll climb too, of course, but the rope will help him and keep him safe. Then you’ll let it down for me, and make it swing backwards and forwards till I can reach it. I shan’t be giddy, I’ll get it right enough, and the three of you can help me up, I know, and we’ll all be all right then.”
David had spoken with a rapidity and energy quite foreign to his ordinary nature, whilst the pressure of excitement and responsibility was upon him; and as he spoke he was unwinding the rope and making a slip knot at one end; but before he had tied it round himself Bertie had stopped him.
“David,” he said, with a little touch of authority in his tone, not usual with the gentle little boy towards one who was his companion and friend as well as his servant, “you must let me go down to Phil with the rope. I do not think Queenie and I could pull him up by ourselves if he cannot help himself much, and I do not think anybody but you could swing the rope for the other one to catch by and by. I can climb very well, and I am not giddy. You must let me go.”
For a few minutes there was a sort of argument between the two boys: David reluctant to let Bertie endanger himself ever so little, Bertie quite convinced that the only way of securing the safety of all was in his plan. Queenie took no part in the talk, only standing by with clasped hands and dilated eyes, wishing, even at this moment when she had so much else upon her mind, that she had never called Bertie a coward, for was he not going to risk his own safety to secure that of Phil?
Bertie’s counsel prevailed. Indeed, it was evidently sound, and his quiet determination carried the day.
“I am not going after sea-gulls’ eggs,” he said to himself, as he commenced his perilous descent. “I know the Squire would let me go to try and save Phil.”