“Now then, my lads,” cried the gunner, “what I propose is that we try and find our landmarks, and as soon as we have hit the place where Master Leigh left us we’ll all hail as loud as we can, and then wait for an answer.”
Tom Tully growled out something in reply, it was impossible to say what, and leaving one man to act as boatkeeper, they all set off together along the shore.
Chapter Sixteen.
Attack and Defeat.
Tom Tully had marked down a towering portion of the cliff as being over the spot where they had lost sight of their young officer, and, as it happened, that really was pretty close to the place, so, trudging on in silence after giving a glance in the direction where the cutter lay, now seen only as a couple of lights about a mile from the shore, they soon reached the rocks, where the gunner called a halt.
“Now, my lads,” he said, “get all of a row, face inwards, and make ready to hail. We’ll give him one good ‘Kestrel ahoy!’ and that’ll wake him up, wherever he is. Hallo! stop that chap! There, he’s dodged behind that big stone.”
The men wanted no further inducement than the sight of some one trying to avoid them.
In an instant the quiet stolid row of men were dashing here and there among the rocks in chase of a dark figure, which, from a thorough knowledge of the ground, kept eluding them, darting between the rocks, scrambling over others; and had he had to deal with a couple of pursuers he would have escaped at once, but he had too many on his track, and fortune was rather against him, so that several times over he ran right upon one or other of the party and was nearly taken.