Running, while clad in oilskins, is hot and tiring work, and I was almost breathless when I reached the highest part of the cliff path. Not a creature was in sight, so I began to return. Just at that moment, in some bushes to the side of the path, there was a movement, and I caught a momentary glimpse of a face I shall never forget.
A man was lying full length in the gorse. He had evidently been watching us as we descended the hollow. He was without doubt a foreign sailor, judging by his olive complexion, black eyes, long hair, and the large earrings he wore. He was clad in a red shirt, blue trousers, and red stocking cap, while round his waist was a soiled leather belt, from which hung a sheath-knife in a long pig-skin case, and by the saturated state of his clothes and his matted hair I knew he had been in the water. But for an instant he eyed me with a look of diabolical rage on his face, then, springing to his feet, he rushed past and sped towards the town, leaving me standing in bewilderment at the strange apparition.
However, I did not mention the matter when I returned, for it was evident that there were more important things to consider.
"There's no help for it," said my father when I told him of the uselessness of my errand. "We must manage it somehow. Come along, Herbert, old boy," he added encouragingly. "Buck up, and you'll soon be safely home."
My uncle struggled gamely to his feet, and the tedious progress was resumed, but ere we had gone a few steps he suddenly staggered and fell unconscious to the ground.
Thereupon I saw my father perform a feat of strength and endurance which, strong as he was, utterly astonished me. Throwing off his oilskins, he bent down, and, hauling his brother's inanimate form upon his broad back, raised himself and set off at a rapid pace towards Fowey, I struggling in the rear, though I carried nothing but his discarded coat.
Up the steep path he pressed, without pausing a moment; as sure-footed as a goat he trod the narrow way, made additionally dangerous by reason of the slime, and, in less than half an hour, gained the town, never resting till he placed his burden on the steps of the ferry.
Willing hands helped us lift my uncle out of the boat, and, accompanied by a doctor, and followed by a pair of reporters and a knot of curious onlookers, the little procession reached my father's house, my uncle's strange escape from the sea being a subject of much conjecture and not a little romance.
"Absolute quietness is essential," was the doctor's mandate, and in obedient silence our neighbours went away, the reporters following, on hearing that no details were forthcoming, to prepare a column of sensational copy based on the flimsiest material imaginable.
Worn out with my night's vigil, I turned in before noon and slept like a top till the following morning. My father watched by the patient's bedside till nearly midnight, when, satisfied that there was no cause for serious anxiety, and that the expected symptoms of brain fever had not shown themselves, he allowed himself to be persuaded to snatch a few hours' sleep; but before I was awake he was up and about, showing no signs of the physical and mental strain he had undergone.