The rattle at last. The door dragged up, and Ram was not alone, for his voice could be heard in conversation with Jemmy Dadd.

The boy was in capital spirits, and he was whistling merrily, his shrill notes echoing from the flat roof as he came on swinging his lanthorn in one hand, the basket in the other.

"Sleep?" he said, as he saw Archy's att.i.tude. "There you are," he continued. "I know you weren't asleep, and if you don't like to talk it aren't my fault. Want anything else?"

No reply; Archy dare not speak.

"Oh, very well," he said, "you can do as you like. Where's t'other basket?"

A shiver ran through the prisoner as he recollected that which he had forgotten in his excitement: the basket which he had taken with some of the food therein, ready for his use as he worked, was standing by the opening at the top of the steps, and he cast an anxious glance sidewise in the direction of the pa.s.sage, in dread lest the boy should detect the light shining down.

He need not have been alarmed, for there was not a ray visible, and even if there had been, the light cast by the opened lanthorn would have hidden it; but he sat there trembling all the same, and with a curious sensation of suffocation rising in his throat, as he softly altered his position and loosened his hands, ready to make a spring at his enemy if it should become necessary.

"Well, I do call that grumpy. Keeps on bringing you nuts, and you're so snarky that you won't so much as give one back the sh.e.l.ls. Now, then, where's that basket?"

Archy felt that he must speak, or else the boy would go in search of it.

"I haven't done with it."

"But I want it to take back."

"It has some of the dinner in it."

"Well, then, let's empty it out."

"No," said Archy, sitting up angrily; "you can't have it now."

"Oh," said Ram, "that's it, is it? Suppose I say I will have it?"

"If you don't take yourself off," cried Archy, "I'll break your head with one of these pieces of stone."

"Two can play at that game."

"Be off."

"I shan't. I want our basket. Mother said I was to bring it back."

"Tell her you haven't got it."

"Now, look here," cried Ram, "if you don't give me that basket back, I won't bring you what I was going to bring to-morrow. Where is it?"

"Where I put it. You contemptible young smuggling thief! How dare you come worrying a gentleman about a dirty old basket!"

"Wasn't dirty, for mother scrubbed it out before she'd send it to you.

Where is it?"

Desperate now in his fix, and feeling that his only resource to keep Ram from searching for the basket with his lanthorn was to keep up this show of anger, Archy made a s.n.a.t.c.h at a long splinter of stone, and started up menacingly.

"Oh, that's it, is it?" cried Ram, who stood upon his guard, but did not appear in the least bit alarmed. "Fed you too well, have I? Had too many oats, and you're beginning to kick up your heels and squeak and snort. Never mind, I'll soon make you civil again. Going to give me that basket?"

"No."

"Then you shan't have this. There!" cried Ram, and s.n.a.t.c.hing up the one he had brought, he walked straight away, swinging his lanthorn after he had shut it with a snap.

"Going to give it to me?" he cried, as he stopped about half way to the trap-door.

"No."

"You'll want all this, and I've got some good tack inside."

"Be off, fellow, and don't bother me."

"Yah! Who want's to?" cried Ram; and he went off whistling merrily till he was at the opening, when he shouted back,--

"No oats to-day, pony. Good-bye."

Archy leaped up and stood listening with his heart beating fast, and his head bent in the direction taken by the boy.

"How unfortunate!" he said. "But I could not help it. Will he come back?"

He listened and listened and hesitated, but there was no sound, and still he hesitated, till quite a couple of hours must have pa.s.sed, when he uttered a loud exultant cry, determined now to make one bold dash for liberty, and made straight through the darkness for the open way.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

The midshipman drew in a long breath of the salt air, as he stood at the opening in the cliff face. He tightened his belt, drew his red cap down on his head, wished that his hands were not so sore, and muttered the words, "Now for liberty!" He began to creep through the hole till his head was well out, and he could look round for enemies.

There was not one. The only thing that he could see was a gull sailing round and round between him and the sea, down to his right.

And now, for the first time, it struck him that the gull looked very small, and from that by degrees he began to realise that the hole out of which he had thrust his head was fully four hundred feet above where the waves broke, and that it must be two hundred more to the top of the cliff.

It looked more perilous too than it had seemed before, but the lad was in nowise daunted. The way was open to him to climb up or lower himself down apparently, but he chose the former way of escape, knowing as he did how very little at the base of the cliffs was left bare even in the lowest tides, and that if he got down he would either have to swim or to sit perched upon a shelf of rock till some boat came and picked him off.

There was no cutter in view, but he did not trouble about that. He stopped only to gaze down at the dazzling blue sea, and thought that if it came to the worst he could leap right off into deep water, and then he drew himself right out on to a rugged ledge, a few inches in width, and stood holding on by the stones round the opening, looking upward for the best way to get up.

"Don't seem easy," he said cheerily, "but every foot climbed will be one less to get up. So, here goes."

As he ceased speaking he drew a deep breath, and then feeling that safety depended upon his being firm, cool, and deliberate, he made his way from the mouth of the hole along the ledge upon which he stood, till he found a spot where he could ascend higher.

It was necessary that he should find such a spot, for the ledge had grown narrower and in another yard died completely away. So, raising his hands to their full extent, he found a place for one foot, then for the other, repeated the experiment, and was just going to draw himself up to a ledge similar to that which he had just left, when one foot slipped from the stone upon which it rested, and had the lad lost his nerve he must have fallen headlong.

But he held on tightly, waited a minute to let the jarring sensation pa.s.s away, depending upon his hands and one foot. Then calmly searching about he found firm foothold, raised himself, and the next moment he was on the green ledge.

"Wouldn't have done to tumble," he said with a hall laugh. "Fall's one thing, a dive another. I suppose the water's pretty deep down there."

The ledge he was now on was fully a foot wide, and the refuse and fish bones with which it was strewn told plainly enough that in the spring time it was the resting--perhaps nesting--place of the sea-birds which swarmed along the coast.