Hoole felt with his hand for a hard smooth spot upon the edge, over which the rope might pass without risk of displacing earth. Then he peered along the ledge from end to end. The sentry was still smoking; no one was visible but Meek. Sounds of talking came from the shed, punctuated by the regular recurring swish of the surf.
'Good luck!' Trentham whispered.
Hoole gave three jerks on the thin line he carried, then slid over the edge. The rope tightened under his armpits; the natives above slowly paid it out. He sank out of sight, and it seemed an age to Trentham before two jerks signalled that he had reached the ledge. A few seconds later a single jerk indicated that the rope might be drawn up. When it came over the edge, Trentham instantly passed the loop over his shoulders, repeated the signal for lowering, and in half a minute was standing beside Hoole, close against the cliff wall.
Both were panting with excitement. No fresh sound was added to those they had already heard; their descent had been unperceived.
Each went at once about the task previously agreed on. Hoole took a few paces towards the sentry, and revolver in hand, stood on guard, while Trentham, with quick, silent cuts of his knife, released the half-unconscious seaman.
'Not a word, Meek,' whispered Trentham, as he placed the loop under the man's shoulders. 'Grinson is waiting for you above.'
He jerked on the line. Meek slowly ascended, and his clothes being dark, his form could scarcely be distinguished against the cliff. He had only just disappeared over the edge when a light was suddenly thrown on the beach by the opening of the door of one of the sheds. There was a burst of louder talking, and a group of seamen issued forth, and ambled down to a dinghy lying a few yards above the surf. Hoole and Trentham slipped silently down, and lay flat against the wall. They heard the scrape of the boat as it was hauled over the sand, the clatter of boots as the men climbed into it, then the rattle of oars in the rowlocks. The men were boarding the Raider; from her deck they might see movements on the ledge. Was this to be the end of the adventure?
For a few minutes the voices of the Germans rose from the vessel; then they ceased, and Hoole, raising his head cautiously, saw that the deck was clear.
'Now for the sentry!' he whispered.
Foreseeing that the native prisoners, when they should be discovered and released, might hail their deliverance with shouts of joy, Trentham had arranged with Grinson that Lafoa, the interpreter, should be lowered to the ledge when he gave the signal. But he had not expected any difficulty in finding the prisoners' whereabouts. The presence of the sentry showed that they were somewhere on the ledge, and he felt some anxiety lest they were near the German, and would be disturbed as Hoole went forward to deal with him. For this reason, when Hoole was about to grope his way along the ledge, Trentham detained him by a whisper, and signalled to Grinson by means of the line. A minute later he heard a sound above as the Papuan came dangling down at the end of the rope--a sound so slight that it could not have been heard by the sentry amid the rustle of the surf. He caught Lafoa about the body, released him from the rope, and then, in the briefest sentences of which pidgin English is capable, instructed him in the part he was to play presently.