he stood, no longer crouching, but upright with defiance of the danger, Messenger took a swift survey of his environment. Immediately above him the rock rose to a height of thirty feet, but with a sheer face which forbade any attempt to swarm it; in front was the abyss, with a throng of men gesticulating and roaring like wolves who hunger at the bottom of it. His first thought, naturally, was one which hesitated about a return by the ravine which led to the haven, lest that should disclose their hiding-place; but, failing this, there was only the path twenty feet below him, and whether or no this would, even could they reach it, bring them to the sea he knew not. A rifle shot, which rang past his head and struck the rock with a sharp "ping," decided him.
"It must be the gate or nothing," said he; "and we'll have to run for it when we get down. Over you go, Hal, or they'll be hitting you!"
The fear of the latter words was not justified. The projection of the roof put the men momentarily out of sight, and Fisher was in comparative security when he grasped to pull himself up. One mighty haul he gave with his brawny arms, but not a second; for the spike had cut the strands of the line, and the lad rolled upon his back with a short length of it still in his hands.
In the face of this new disaster the two, for the moment, stood without idea or speech. So steep, indeed, so overhanging, was the rock on the hither side of the gate that it was idle even to venture the effort of climbing it; and no words from one man to the other were needed to express the whole of the danger. There it was in all its nakedness. Before them was the rock; below them was the chasm; and, as they soon learned, there were men now coming up the goat path toward the house in which they were. But at this Messenger began to run distractedly up and down the roof again, and as soon as he showed himself another bullet struck against the parapet; and the howls of the savage horde were louder and more fierce.
Now at this supremity of the crisis, and when two of the men running upon the path were within fifty paces of the stone house, but fortunately bearing no arms, Messenger looked up at the cliff above the end of the building which was furthest from the gate, and saw that it was less steep than the precipice which forbade his return to the haven. At any other time he would have deemed a man who attempted to climb it nothing less than a lunatic; but now, with a desperation which was born of the position, he clutched at this straw and dared the hazard.
"Hal," said he, "I'm going up the cliff, there. Will you come?"
"I'll try," said Fisher laconically; but the Prince gave him no opportunity for answer. He had already sprung up at the rock, clutching it with a fierce, nervous grip, and pulling himself from bush to bush with a frenzy which reckoned with no danger and was swift in its success. Indeed, before the lad himself could move, the other was half-way to the summit, hanging, as it seemed, against the perpendicular face of the rock, and above a precipice two hundred feet in depth; and still he went on where one would have said no man could go—on where a false step would have sent him reeling down to death on the crags below—and Fisher's head whirled at the sight, and be declared to himself that he could not follow, though his life hung upon the venture.
For my own part, I am led to believe that the younger man would never have dared this flight had it not been for the sudden appearance of one of the Spaniards at the trap-door in the roof. Just as he was in the throes of his hesitation, and stood trembling with his doubt, the head of a huge shoreman came up through the aperture and a deep exclamation burst from the fellow when he saw his prey. But Fisher was prompted only to action, and now, aroused to his situation, he took a running kick at the head, and as the Spaniard withdrew it, shouting horribly with his pain, the lad put his foot upon a protuberance of the rock and began boldly to climb it.