The excitement was now tremendous: the cutter’s boat was going fast, and the second boat was closing up, so that it would be impossible for the smugglers to escape by sea. And now, as they drew nearer, Archy saw that his first surmise was right: Ram was in the boat, and right forward, his red cap showing out plainly in the morning light. Jemmy Dadd was there too, and Shackle, beside the big dark fellow who had tricked the lieutenant, while the rest of the crew were strong-looking fellows of the fisherman type.
“Now then there!” shouted Gurr, rising up, but retaining his hold of the tiller with one hand. “It’s of no use. Surrender!”
A yell of derision came from the boat, and Ram jumped up and waved his red cap, with the effect that it seemed as if some of the dye had been transferred to Archy’s face, which a minute sooner had been rather pale with excitement.
“Pull, my lads, pull, and you’ll have them before they land!” cried the master, stamping his foot. “Here, take the tiller, Mr Raystoke;” and he shifted his position, passed the tiller to Archy, and stood up and drew his sword.
“Starboard a little—starboard!” he said. “Run her right alongside, my lad; and you, my men, never mind your oars, the others’ll pick them up. The moment we touch, up with you, out with your cutlashes, and down with any man who does not surrender.”
“Ay, ay, sir!” cheered the men.
“Now, then,” shouted Gurr, “do you surrender?”
A derisive laugh came from the smugglers, who pulled their hardest, pretty closely followed by the king’s boat, when, just as they seemed to be coming stem on to the rocks at the foot of the cliff, the four men on the starboard side suddenly plunged their oars down deep, backing water, while the men on the larboard pulled furiously, the result being that the head of the boat swung round, and she glided right out of sight behind a tall rock, which seemed part of the main cliff from a few yards out.
A fierce cry of rage came from the master, but he was quick at giving directions, checking the course of his boat, and then proceeding cautiously; and having no difficulty in following under a low archway for some twenty yards,—a passage evidently only possible at extreme low water,—and directly after they were out again in broad daylight, and at the bottom of a huge funnel-like hollow, from which the rocky cliffs rose up some three hundred feet.
It was a marvellously beautiful spot, but the occupants of the White Hawk’s boat had only eyes then for the smugglers, who had run their boat into a nook just across the bottom of the pool, and they had had time to leap on to the rock, and were rapidly climbing a rough zigzag path.