Chapter Eighteen.
The Fugitives make good their Escape.
Having partaken of as much of the fruit as he deemed prudent, George at once betook himself to the task of climbing the precipice, and was agreeably surprised at the rapidity and ease with which he accomplished the ascent. Now that he was unencumbered with Walford’s weight, and was free from the horrible dread which had before haunted him—that a false step on Tom’s part might precipitate all hands to the bottom—his confidence in his own powers enabled him to coolly approach and successfully surmount obstacles which, under less favourable conditions, he would have dreaded to face, and in a few minutes he was within a foot or two of the top.
Here he deemed it prudent to pause for a moment and survey the path by which he had ascended, so that, in the event of danger, he might be able to effect a rapid retreat. The glance downward which he permitted himself to take, though only momentary, brought on again, though happily only in a mitigated degree, the same feeling of vertigo and nausea from which he had before suffered; and he was obliged to close his eyes for a short time, clinging convulsively to the rock meanwhile, to avoid falling headlong to the bottom.
Having at length once more recovered his steadiness, he rose cautiously higher and higher, until his head was level with the top edge of the precipice, and then he ventured to raise his head rapidly, cast a flying glance round, and dip it again. But the latter precaution was needless; the ground still sloped upward, so that he could see for a distance of some forty yards only, but all the visible space was perfectly clear; there was no human eye to detect his presence there. Once more raising his head, and this time taking a more leisurely and deliberate glance round, to make assurance doubly sure, he proceeded to make his way up over the edge on to the comparatively level ground at the top. This was a task demanding the utmost caution, for a depth of some eighteen inches of light soil crowned the rock, thickly covered with long rank grass, which, owing to the lightness of the soil, afforded but a very precarious and uncertain hold. The soil itself, too, crumbled away immediately beneath his touch, so that at the very top of the precipice he was unable to find anything to which he could safely hold. For a short time it almost seemed as if these apparently trifling obstacles were about to baffle him altogether, and it was not until he had actually laid bare the rock immediately in front of him, as far as his arm could reach, that he accomplished his object, and stood safely on the top of the cliff.
He now threw himself flat on the ground in the long grass, thus effectually concealing himself from the view of any chance passer-by, and crawled to the crest of the hill, where he again peered cautiously about him. The ground, from the spot whereon he knelt, declined pretty steeply to the sea, only a quarter of a mile distant; slightly to his right there lay a valley, with a tiny river flowing through it into the sea; and on either bank of this stream there stood two or three crazy wattle-huts, scarcely worthy the name of human habitations, with a net or two spread behind them on poles in the sun to dry. Three or four fishing-canoes and a boat—a ship’s boat, which looked as though it had been picked up derelict—were moored in the stream; but human beings, there were none visible. In line with the river, commencing at a distance of about two miles from the shore, and extending right out to the horizon, there lay a group of islets, some forty or more in number; and far away beyond them, lying like a thin grey cloud of haze on the water, he could see the Isle of Pines.
“So far, so good,” thought George. The spot was evidently a lonely one, inhabited by a few fishermen only; there was no sign of any watch being maintained on the chance of the runaways putting in an appearance, so the chase had doubtless by this time been abandoned as hopeless; there was a capital boat—which, in his urgent necessity, he felt he need not scruple to appropriate—lying in the stream below, and everything promised favourably for a successful escape from the island.
But though the scene below looked so quiet and deserted, and though the boat lay there so temptingly within sight, Leicester felt that the evening would be the most suitable time for making their final effort; they were in no immediate hurry now, and it was scarcely worth while to risk detection by putting off in broad daylight. Besides, the sea-breeze was blowing half a gale, and in their exhausted condition they would scarcely be able to drive the boat ahead against it; whilst, by waiting until sundown, they would have it calm to start with, and the breeze, when it came, would be off the land and in their favour.
Thus arguing the matter with himself, he rose to his feet, and sauntered leisurely back to the cliff-edge on his return journey.