Cutlass and Cudgel

by George Manville Fenn

But no; Ram had not moved, and there was yet time.

Seizing the coil of rope, he shook it open, and selecting one of the biggest blocks of stone, which had at some time fallen from above, he made one end of the rope fast, tried it to make sure, lowered the other over the edge, and carefully slid down, swinging to and fro, and turning slowly round, to hang for a few moments, trying to plant his foot on the ledge without touching Ram, for he felt more than ever convinced he would glide off at the slightest shock.

It was impossible. The only way was to draw up his legs, give himself an impetus by kicking against the rock, swinging to and fro, and then letting himself, at a certain moment when he was well beyond the boy, drop on to the shelf.

He tried the experiment, and swung past Ram again and again, but dared not leave go for fear of missing the rock with his feet.

At last he ventured: swung well past the prostrate figure, loosened his grasp, alighted on the narrow ledge quite clear, but could not preserve his balance, and fell back, uttering a low cry, as he tightened his grasp upon the rope again, but not till he had slipped rapidly down a good twenty feet, where he began swinging to and fro again.

For a few moments it seemed all over; there was the sea at a terrible depth below him, and all that distance to climb up with his hands bleeding and giving him intense pain, while his arms felt half jerked out of their sockets.

But he had had plenty of experience in climbing ropes, and, muttering, “Don’t lose your nerve,” he got the line well twisted round his legs, and climbed up again sufficiently high to repeat his former experiment, this time with success, and he stood upon the ledge and loosely knotted the rope about his waist, to guard against letting the end go, before kneeling down tremulously, and getting one hand well in under the collar of the boy’s rough coat.

For some minutes he felt giddy; there was a mist before his eyes, and he involuntarily pressed himself close to the rock, expecting to fall, and in a curious, dreamy way he saw himself hanging far below, swinging at the end of the rope.

But all this passed off, and, exerting his strength as far as he could in the terribly dangerous, crippled position in which he was, he gave three or four sharp jerks, and succeeded in drawing Ram well on to the shelf, when, in the revulsion of feeling, the dizziness came back, and he felt that he must faint.

“Leave off, will yer?” came roughly to his ears, and roused him, telling him that the boy was not dead. “D’yer hear, Jemmy Dadd? Great coward! Father know’d you’d hit me like that, he’d half kill you.”