He had climbed that ridge dozens of times. He knew the easiest way; but now its difficulties were terrible, and in his heated exhausted condition he could hardly drag himself up over the last steep block. The nightmare-like sensation grew more painful, and he felt that he must give way, but that dread of being too late spurred him on till he was on the very summit, where he sank down with a groan of despair, for there, hundreds of yards from where he lay, right on the other side of the western arm of the black crater, was the boat with a white sail spread, skimming along so rapidly that in another few moments it was hidden from his longing eyes.
He raised himself upon his hands, his eyes staring wildly, his lips parting to give utterance to a hoarse cry, but so feeble, that it was like the querulous wail of a sea-gull, and as his cry was lost in the immensity around, the boat glided onward and was gone, leaving him with his spirit as dark as the waters at his feet where they filled up the crater that lay between him and the help he had come to seek.
Chapter Forty Three.
How Hope revived like a Sunshine Gleam.
“What shall I do? what shall I do?” groaned Mark, as he stared at the black ridge which ran down to the sea on the other side of the bay.
Then he looked down at the carefully-moored little vessel that lay near the old charred and well-stripped hull, and lastly with a sigh at the cloud-draped mountain high up to his left, beyond the head of the little black-beached bay.
Wearied out, parched with thirst, and with his throat seeming to be half-closed up, he tried to give another hail, and then, knowing that his feeble voice would not travel across the bay, he descended slowly from step to step, from rift to rift. Sometimes he missed his footing, and slipped or rolled down; sometimes he lay for a few moments too much exhausted to attempt to rise, till the thought of those who were awaiting his return came back to him reproachfully, and struggling to his feet once more he continued his descent, gazing anxiously now before him in search of the praus, but the calm horizon, illumined by the setting sun, showed no sign of enemy, and he continued his descent and reached the sands.
“I must get back to them before it’s dark,” he said to himself; and this thought spurred him on to new efforts.