Kneeling in the quickly-gathering darkness of the cavern, George completed the first lashing of the logs; then gathering up all the remainder of the rope, that we might not entangle our feet, he stowed it away high up on the rocky ledge which had served as a shelf for our provisions.
All day we had hardly thought of food—a bite of cheese while we worked having proved sufficient; but now, though wearied with our labour, we set to work to pluck and cook the second pheasant—an operation which, as we sat in the darkness with no means of telling how time was passing, seemed to last far into the night. With most of our wood gone to form the raft, we had to be chary of our fuel. The bird was only half cooked, and I had little inclination for eating; but we forced ourselves to swallow something, for on George's strength keeping up, if not on mine, our last chance of rescue depended.
My cold was worse, and I felt utterly miserable as I sat crouching by the glowing embers, the warmth from which was not sufficient to temper the bitter breeze from the sea, which swept through the cavern as through a draughty tunnel.
"George," I said, "it would be awful to die here alone in the dark, and no one ever to know what had become of us. Are you sure that raft will carry you safely?"
"Oh, bless you, Master Eden, don't talk about dying," answered the man; "that's not the way the true Briton looks at things. 'Never say die' is his motto. There's many poor fellows been in worse plights than we are, and not thrown up the sponge. Bless you, sir, I shall help to carry you to and from school many a time yet, I hope. 'Woodley,' you'll say, 'this is better than the two nights we spent in that cave!' 'You're right, sir,' I shall answer; and then all the other outsides'll want to hear the story. Ho, ho! my eye! but I doubt if they'll believe it's all true!"
He went on cheering me with his lively talk, though his teeth chattered with the cold. He had never seemed more gay when perched on the back seat of the old Regulator. Yet if I could have read his thoughts, I might have discovered that he more than half believed that this was to be his last night on earth; for though determined for my sake, as well as for the wife and child dependent on him, to attempt an escape from the cave by means of the raft, he did not doubt that the chances were very much against his ever reaching the shore. So, for the sake of the youngster at his side, he hid his fears and made light of the uncertain future. Such was George Woodley, and as such I like to remember him: on the highroad a mail-coach guard, in the presence of death a very gallant gentleman.
The day had been tiring as well as anxious, and in spite of cold and discomforts my heavy eyelids began at length to droop and my head to nod, until before long my troubles were swallowed up in blissful forgetfulness.
I must have slept some hours, totally unconscious of what was going on around me. I have a distinct recollection that I was dreaming of making a journey by coach as an inside passenger. Mile by mile we went rumbling on; it was windy, for the blast came in gusts through the open windows, and roared in the tops of the wayside trees. We stopped to change horses, and as I looked out an hostler lifted a pail of water and, with a shout, flung it in my face!
I awoke gasping and choking. The water and the shout had been no dream, nor, for that matter, the unceasing sound which had seemed to me the noise of the wind and the lumbering vehicle. The next instant my arm was seized and shaken by Woodley.
"Rouse up, Master Eden!" he cried; "rouse up, sir! There's a storm coming on, and the sea is splashing over the rock!"