“Badly hurt?” cried the governor.
“Very, sir,” shouted the warder who was manipulating the rope. “Wait a minute,” he continued, and, stripping off his tunic, he threw it over the injured man’s head, and passed the sleeves under the rope about his chest.
“Mind what you’re doing, or he’ll slip away.”
“He’ll slip away if I do mind,” muttered the warder. “Here, steady, mate; I only wanted to keep the rocks from chafing you.”
For the convict had suddenly torn at the tunic; but his hands dropped again directly, word was given to haul gently, and holding on by either side of the loop about the prisoner’s breast, the warders climbed as the rope was hauled, and kept the unfortunate man’s head from the rock.
This last was a slower process than the sending up of the first prisoner, but the rest of the warders were searching about still, especially down close to the edge of the sea, in the expectation of seeing the third man hiding among the rocks half covered with the long strands of the slimy fucus that fringed the tide-washed shore. And all the while the two boats made the water glisten, and the blue lights threw up the face of the rock so clearly that, unless he had found some deep, dark, cavernous niche, there was but little chance for an escaping convict to cling anywhere there unseen.
By the time the second man was taken to the shelf a fresh arrival was upon the scene in the person of the jail surgeon, who, fresh from attending sergeant and warder, made a rapid examination of the first prisoner, and then began to open a case by the light of one of the lanterns.
“Dangerous?” said the governor sharply.
“No. Bullet clean through one thigh and the other regularly ploughed. Send for stretchers.”
He knelt down as he spoke, and with the convict groaning piteously he rapidly plugged one of his wounds, and bandaged both.