Still no answer.
She now became very seriously alarmed, and, quite losing command of herself, called upon him in piteous accents to answer, or if anything had befallen him to give her some sign of his whereabouts in order that she might be guided to his assistance. Still calling him, she was about to attempt the perilous ascent of the cliff-face in quest of him when she heard him shout, and, looking up, saw him leaning over the edge of a rocky ledge about a hundred feet above her.
“Are you all right, Miss Stanhope?” he shouted. “I thought I heard you call.”
“Yes,” she replied, steadying her voice as well as she could on the instant. “I am all right, thank you, but I have been calling; you were so long away that I began to fear some accident had befallen you.”
“No,” he answered back, “I am all right, but I have made a most wonderful and interesting discovery that—However, I will come down.”
And suiting the action to the word, he at once began to descend the face of the cliff, not vertically, as he had gone up, but in a diagonal direction, and, as Sibylla thought, at break-neck speed. Ned continued his wild career until he reached the water’s-edge, at a distance of perhaps two hundred feet to the westward of the boat, when, from what Sibylla could see of his movements, he appeared to break the bough of a bush in such a manner as to leave the branch dangling from the parent shrub, after which he began to make his way along the cliff-face toward the boat.
A few minutes later he reached the dinghy—minus the bird, by the by, which he had set out to secure—and stepping in at once proceeded to cast off the painter. Then, as he stepped aft and tossed the paddles into the rowlocks, he first got a glimpse of Sibylla’s still troubled face.
“I beg your pardon, Miss Stanhope,” he said. “I am afraid I have frightened you by my long stay aloft there. The fact is I was so interested in my discovery that for the moment I forgot the flight of time.
“I have made a most curious and important discovery, and one that may or may not be of the utmost value to us. When I started aloft to get that bird—by the bye, where is it? Ah! I see it! and I will have it, too, before I go back to the ship; but I will tell you my story first. I had not made my way very far up the cliff when I came to what looked so very much like a flight of roughly hewn steps running up the cliff-face that I determined to follow the indications, and investigate. I did so, and soon came to the conclusion that, though the step-like projections were just as thickly overgrown as the rest of the cliff-face—showing that they had not been used for years, or possibly generations, they had undoubtedly been wrought out by the hand of man. Pushing the shrubs on one side I had no difficulty whatever in making my way upwards, until I at length came out upon a flat platform of rock, in the outer edge of which were two holes or depressions, some twelve feet apart, which I imagined might have been hollowed out to receive the heels of a pair of sheers, an impression which was rendered all the stronger when, on looking more closely, I discovered a groove terminating in a third hole which I immediately guessed must have been formed to receive the heel of the back-leg. All this is, I suppose, Greek to you; but you will perhaps comprehend me when I explain that sheers are used to assist in hoisting heavy articles with. The rocky platform is about fifteen feet square, the cliff-face overhanging it above; and at its back part there is a sort of split in the rock about eight feet wide and nearly the same height. I passed in through this crevice, and at once found myself in a cave perhaps thirty feet wide and about fifty feet deep. And now comes the strangest part of the affair. It is nearly half full of bales and parcels, with several jars, apparently earthenware, their mouths tied over with what looks like a coarse kind of cloth; but everything is so thickly coated with dust and grime that it is quite impossible to guess at the contents of these jars and bales without further investigation. And in one corner there are stacked up a number of weapons—spears and axes—so rusted and decayed that they may have been there for centuries. There are also a number of what I took to be shields by the look of them; but they, like everything else, are so coated with dust that I did not touch them. But I must certainly give the place a thorough overhaul, as it may serve us as a refuge and place of concealment at a pinch. Would you like to go up and have a look at the cave and its contents now?”
“I should like it very much, if you think I could climb the stairs,” answered Sibylla.