Away they went, past headland after headland, while every eye was fixed upon the rocky shore, as if seeking something which was not easily to be found.
At length, just when they rounded the bold, craggy promontory of King and Queen point, a dull boom reached their ears, followed instantly by the thunder of a sustained cannonade. At that familiar sound the sailors clenched their teeth savagely, as they looked up at the tremendous precipices that seemed to shut them out from all hope of taking part in the battle.
“Can’t we get up anywhere?” growled the captain, of the frigate, who was in the foremost boat. “We’re disgraced forever if they do the job without us.”
“With your honor’s leave,” broke in a stalwart young topman, touching his thick brown forelock, “I think I could get up that rock yonder, and fasten a rope for the rest to climb by.”
“What! up there?” cried the captain, glancing doubtfully from the young sailor’s bright, fearless face to the tremendous height above. “Well, my lad, if you can do it, I’ll give you fifty guineas!”
“It’s for the honor of the flag, not for the money, sir!” answered the seaman, springing from the boat to the lowest ledge of the terrible rock.
Up, up, up, ever higher he clambered, with the rising wind flinging his loose hair to and fro, and the startled sea-birds whirling around him with hoarse screams of mingled fear and rage. To the watching eyes far below, the tiny points of rock to which he clung were quite invisible, and he seemed to be hanging in mid-air, like a fly on the side of a wall.
And now he was two-thirds of the way up the precipice; and now he was within a few yards of the top; and now his hand almost touched the highest ledge, when suddenly his feet were seen to slide from under him, and in a moment he was swinging in the empty air, grasping a projecting crag with the strength of desperation.
“Hold fast, Tom!” yelled his comrades, as they saw him.
Tom did hold fast, and the strong hands that had defied the full fury of an Atlantic gale to loosen them from the slippery rigging did him good service once more. He regained his footing, and the indrawn breath of the anxious gazers below sounded like a hiss in the grim silence as they watched the final effort that brought him safely to the top.