Growing restless at this delay, we longed to be doing something, and at length decided to try to secure some more pieces of the floating wreckage. George was the first to rise to his feet, and as he did so he exclaimed,—
"Hullo! here's a find!"
Lying on the ledge of rock where Rodwood had left it on the previous evening was the warder's pistol. My companion examined it, and finding that it was loaded and primed, clambered up and put it in a niche of the rock high above his head, remarking as he did so,—
"There, that's safer than letting it lie about on the ground. A chance kick might send it off, and one of us get the ball in his foot."
The set of the current seemed to have drifted more wreckage into the cavern, and the flowing tide had brought a quantity of it close to the extreme end of the cave, where it floated in a jumbled mass at the foot of our platform. By clambering down to the water's edge and "fishing" with another broken spar, we had no difficulty in drawing it towards us and then throwing it up to the rock above. One piece of timber which seemed a portion of a mast had a quantity of rope attached to it, and a couple of blocks with more cordage were also secured. At length my eye rested on another of those mischievous kegs, but this one apparently half or wholly empty, judging from the manner in which the greater portion of it appeared above the surface of the water.
"There's another of those little barrels," I said to George, half jestingly. "Haul it out, and we'll use it as our water-butt."
The keg was accordingly fished out of the sea, and added to our little pile of salvage. One or two more small fragments of wood were next recovered; then George pointed to a long, slender spar which I had already noticed, but which was floating close to the opposite wall of the cavern, and beyond our reach.
"That looks like an oar, Master Eden," he said. "We'll get that somehow. I think I can manage it with a line and slip-knot made out of some of that rope."
It did not take long for this simple tackle to be prepared, and with its aid George soon secured the oar, and handed it up to me as I stood above him on the rock. He passed it up, I say, blade first, and I remember, as I caught hold of it, having given a sudden cry, almost as though the wood had been red-hot iron.
"What's the matter?" shouted the astonished guard.