"I 'low I'll have t' go back t' Nanny's Rock for a better squint," he told himself.
Back to Nanny's Rock he went, at no small risk, for the occasional flow of foam, which had cut it off from the mainland when first he crossed, had swollen to a strait of some depth and strength. He must make the leap, but he dreaded it. There was a moment of terror when his foot slipped, and he came near falling back into the very claws of the breaker which followed him; on that account, perhaps, his survey of the face of the cliff was a hurried one, and his return to safe ground precipitate and somewhat flurried.
He had seen enough, however, to persuade him that the ascent would be comparatively easy for at least a hundred feet, and that, for the rest of the way, it would not, probably, be much more difficult.
In point of fact, he knew nothing whatever of what lay beyond the first hundred feet. But the element of probability, or rather improbability, did not disconcert him. He could at least make a start.
If you have ever climbed about a rocky sea-coast, you will know that an ascent may be comparatively simple where a descent is quite impracticable; you will know that the unwary may of a sudden reach a point where to continue the climb is a nauseating necessity. There are times when one regrets the courage that led him into his difficulty—the courage or the carelessness, as the case may be.
Experience had long ago taught Billy Topsail that; but the lesson had not been severe—there had been no gulf behind him; the whip of life or death had not urged him on. Indeed, he had never attempted a climb of such height and ugly possibilities in the way of blind leads as Shag Cliff, else possibly he should not have made the start with a sense of adventure so inspiring.
Up he went—up and still up, his cheeks glowing, his nerves pleasurably tingling! Up—up and still up, until he could hear the whiz of gulls' wings near him, and the feeling of space below began to try his nerves. At last he stopped to rest and look about. Down deep lay the breakers, so far off, it seemed, that he marvelled he could hear the roar and crash so distinctly.
"An' they says 'tis a hundred feet!" thought he. "Hut! 'Tis two hundred if 'tis an inch. An' I isn't but half way up!"
Beyond that point his difficulties began. The cliff was bolder; it was almost bare of those little ledges and crevices and projections upon which the cliff-climber depends for handhold and foothold. Moreover, the path was interrupted from time to time by sheer or overhanging rock. When he came to these impassable places, of course, he turned to right or left, content with his progress if only he mounted higher and higher. Thus he strayed far off the path he had picked out from Nanny's Rock; indeed, he was climbing blindly, a thoughtless course, for—had he but stopped to think—there was no knowing that the cliff did not overhang at the end of the way he had taken.
Meanwhile, time was passing. He had climbed with such caution, retraced his steps, changed his course so often that noon was long past. So when next he came to a roomy ledge he sat down to rest before proceeding farther.