I had primed my musket and laid it within arm's length, and was patiently awaiting their reappearance, when a dark shadow fell athwart the rock.
Instinctively I turned my head to ascertain the cause, when a hand was clapped over my mouth, and I felt the contact of a man's knees with the small of my back.
CHAPTER XXII
A Leap for Life
In spite of my desperate struggles, a cord was wound tightly round my ankles, and my arms were bound behind my back. This done, a thick piece of canvas took the place of the hand across my mouth, so that I could scarce breathe, much less utter a sound; and a bandage was tied across my eyes.
Then I felt myself being set upon my feet, a rope was passed round my waist, and I was suspended over the edge of the cliff, as helpless as a trussed fowl.
"Stand by!" I heard a gruff voice exclaim, and the next instant I was lowered into space, where I hung, turning slowly at the rope's end, with the dull murmur of the waves at the base of the cliff some fifty feet below to add to the terror of my situation.
By the number of successive short jerks I knew that I had not been lowered more than ten feet when I was seized by rough hands and dragged in towards the cliff. The rope by which I had been lowered was cast off, and, lifted in a horizontal position, I was borne away.
The sudden change from the scorching rays of the sun to a chilly atmosphere, and the echoing footsteps of my captors, told me that I was being carried along a tunnel in the rocks. I distinctly counted four-and-forty footfalls ere the men set me down upon a stone floor; then the bandage was whipped off my eyes, and I found myself blinking in the subdued daylight.