How Lionel got down to the bottom of the staircase he could never afterwards have told. He only knew that when about half way down his foot slipped. The next thing he remembered was finding himself among the rocks at the bottom, bruised, bleeding, and partially stunned. A larger wave than usual, which dashed completely over him, gave him a shock which helped to revive him. Not the least perilous part of his enterprise was still before him. Already the tide was two feet deep at the foot of the cliff. Fortunately, the wind had gone down, and the rain had in some measure abated; but had it not been for the lightning’s friendly flashes, Lionel’s task would have been a hopeless one. The road he had to take was thickly strewn with huge boulders, and gigantic masses of rock which had fallen—some of them centuries ago—from the cliffs overhead. Between and over these Lionel had to make his way to the point where the stranger had fallen. It was a work of time and peril, more especially now that the tide was coming in so dangerously fast, beating and eddying round the rocks and dashing over them in showers of stinging spray. Lionel saw clearly that, in any case, it would be quite impossible for him to return by the way he was going till ebb of tide. He must find some “coign of vantage” among the fallen rocks, or high up in the face of the cliff, beyond reach of the waves, and there wait patiently for further help. But first to find the stranger.
Manfully, gallantly, Lionel Dering set himself to the task before him. Foot by foot, yard by yard, he fought his way forward. The lightning showed him at once the dangers he had to contend against, and how best to avoid them. Over some of the rocks he had to clamber on all fours; round others he had to pick his way, waist-deep in water. Now and then, a larger wave than common would seize him, dash him like a log against the rocks, and then leave him, bruised and breathless, to gather up its forces for another attack. But Lionel never faltered or looked back. Onward he went, slowly but surely nearing the object of which he was in search. Nearly exhausted, all but worn out, at length he reached the heap of débris formed by the falling of the cliff—or rather that portion of it which the sea had spared. He was terribly anxious by this time. If the body of the stranger when it fell had been caught by any of the ledges or rough projecting angles of the débris, and had lodged there, there was just a faint possibility that the man might be still alive. But if, on the contrary, it had rolled down to the foot of the cliff, the waves would long ago have claimed it as their own.
The storm was passing away inland. The lightning was no longer either so frequent or so vivid. Lionel’s difficulty was to find the exact point of the cliff from which the stranger had fallen. At the most he could only guess at it. Still, here was the mass of fallen cliff, and the body, unless washed away by the tide, could not be far off.
Having accomplished so much, he had neither long nor far to search. Putting out his hand in the dark to grasp a projecting ledge of rock, which the last flash of lightning had shown to him, his fingers touched a clammy ice-cold face. He drew back his arm with an involuntary shudder. Next moment his heart gave a great throb of relief, and he felt that, whether the man were alive or dead, his labour had not been entirely in vain.
The body was lying among a heap of jagged rocks, half in and half out of the water. Lionel’s first idea was that the man was stone dead. But a more careful examination, which he made as soon as he had dragged the body beyond reach of the still-rising tide, convinced him that there were still some flickering signs of life—just the faintest possible pulsation of the heart. The forehead was marked by a thin streak of blood, which Lionel tried to stanch with his handkerchief. For the rest, he made out, by the momentary glimpses which the lightning afforded him, that the man was young, fair, slightly built, and, to all appearance, a gentleman. Feeling some hard substance, Lionel put his hand into the stranger’s pocket, and drew from it a small travelling flask. It contained a little brandy, with which Lionel moistened the unconscious lips, but the stranger’s teeth were so firmly set that he found it impossible to open them. What more could he do? he asked himself, and he was obliged to answer, Nothing. If Bunce had not deserted him, help would be forthcoming before long. Otherwise, he must wait there for daybreak and the ebbing of the tide.
But faithful, good-hearted Bunce had not deserted him. He had roused up Jasper, the lighthouse-keeper, out of his first snooze—Jasper’s two mates being on duty—and had brought that individual, still half dazed, but responding manfully to the call, together with a quantity of stout rope, and a couple of ship’s lanterns, not forgetting a blanket and a nip of cognac, and was back again on the cliffs only a few minutes after Lionel’s search was at an end.
Never had human voice sounded so welcome to Lionel as did the coastguardsman’s hoarse shouts that August night. They soon made each other out, and then the rest was comparatively easy. A rope was slung round the body of the still unconscious stranger, which was then hauled up by the two men with all possible care to the top of the cliff; a process which was repeated in the case of Lionel.
“I never thought to see you alive again, Mr. Dering,” said Bunce, with tears in his eyes, as Lionel grasped him warmly by the hand. “Where do you wish to have the gentleman taken to?”
“To Gatehouse Farm, of course,” said Lionel. “Jasper, you run into the village, and borrow a horse and cart, and some straw, and another blanket or two, and get back again as if your life depended on it.”
And so about midnight the stranger, who had never recovered consciousness, was laid in Mr. Dering’s own bed at Gatehouse Farm. They had found a card-case in his pocket, the cards in which were inscribed with the name of “Mr. Tom Bristow,” but that was the only clue to his identity. Dr. Bell, the local practitioner, was quickly on the spot.