"All mighty fine!" he shrilled. "But if you'd follow'd me, where'd you be now?--why back in Boulon. And cause you didn't, where are you?--why hung up on a dead foul leesh.o.r.e: Diamond dead, lugger gone, the hue- and-cry up after you--"

"And our only ope in eaven," chimed in Bandy of the chirpy voice.

"And how'd stickin the Gentleman elp us?" grumbled the brutal Toadie.

"I'd stuck him fast enough if I'd twigged that!"

Fat George leaned forward.

"What's the reward out agin him?--Thousand guineas, ain't it?"

"Go on!--We'd never ha took him alive. You know his hackle."

"Ah!" interposed the fat man, "but what d'ye think his corpse'd ha been worth to the British Government? him _and_ the papers on him, to say nothin o pickins for pore men, what n.o.body needn't know nothin about--them rings, that pin, and the bundle o notes in his tail-pocket." He combed his fingers through his locks. "What'd that ha been worth? I'll tell you." He wagged a fat finger. "A free pardon to h'every man h'all round, a free pa.s.s back to Boulon--"

"And the thanks o Parlyment for what we done to the crew o the _Curlew_!" piped Bandy.

"It's G.o.d's truth, I'm talkin!" screamed the fat man. "And there's the man what stood between you and it!" He flung a fat hand at Red Beard.

The giant turned.

"What, sell him!" he drawled. "Sell the man that made you; that trusted you; that never turned his back on a rat yet--much less a pal." He spat into the sea curling at his feet. "What was it old Diamond says?--'We're all--traitors,' says he, poor old horse; 'but we are men, only Fat George. And he's a--sow without a soul."

A murmur of approval ran round.

"You're right, Red Beard."

"The Genelman were a genelman."

"That he were!" came a chorus from the maingy crew.

"Gentleman!" put in Bandy. "He were better. He were a--lord. I ought to know seein I rode for one--afore my misfortune."

The boat had drifted sea-ward, the fat man giving an occasional sly dig.

Suddenly he flung back into the oars.

"Ave it your own way," he sang out. "Ole George ain't good enough for you, I see. I'll say good-day."

The giant jerked his musket to his shoulder.

"Come in!" he thundered. "Or I'll plug a hole through that great paunch o your'n."

The fat man saw himself covered. He paddled back, grinning ghastly.

"Avast there, Red Beard!" he t.i.ttered. "You're that asty. Can't you take a little joke?"

"I can take one o your little jokes about as easy as you can take one o my little bullets in the belly," rumbled the giant. "Come in now.

Get out o that boat. You'd sell us as you sold the Gentleman. That bit o wood's all that stands atween us and Kingdom Come."

"Easy all," chimed in Bandy d.i.c.k. "Only one thing's sure in our present interestin sitiwation; and that is if we don't ang together, we'll ang separate."

CHAPTER XXIII

THE CLIMB

I

Crouched behind the boulder, Kit listened.

Surely they must hear his heart! It was thumping so that he took his hand off the boulder before him lest it should betray him by its shaking.

Black Diamond!--Fat George!--the Gentleman!

There could be no question as to the ident.i.ty of these kites. They were the Gap Gang, and in desperate plight. Their lugger was gone, and their leader dead. At sixes and sevens among themselves, they had quarrelled with the only man who might somehow have saved them. Behind them lay the gallows; before them the sea--and nothing to cross it in but the lugger's long-boat, and that water-logged.

Their condition was desperate; but what about his own?

He could not round the Head. They stood between him and his goal.

Could he go back along the bay? He glanced back at the line of headlands, shimmering in the sun. The tide in places already lapped the foot of the cliff. And even as he pondered, a chill something startled his feet. He looked down. It was the water, stealing in upon him, quiet as a cat. He could not stay where he was. To do so was to drown.

There was but one thing for it--to climb.

He glanced up. Things were not so hopeless as he had feared. The mists were drifting seaward. He could see the dark crest of gra.s.s r.i.m.m.i.n.g the cliff-edge above him.

Thank heaven!--this was no longer the blank and aweful wall, hundreds of feet high and sheer as a curtain, which he had found above him last night. The cliff must have fallen away towards the point. That dark crest of gra.s.s, shivering in the wind, was not so far away; and the cliff itself was by no means sheer.

The tide was already lapping the point. The smugglers had drifted away before it. He could hear their voices on the other side. Now was his chance.

II

On tiptoe he crept off the betraying shingle, and began to climb, the scent-bottle in his mouth.

A recent fall of cliff helped him, making a ramp. Up it he went, a tiny trickle of dislodged shale dribbling away beneath his feet.

At the top of the fall a mat of weeds had grown. On this he stayed.

The cliff arched out blue-white over him like the inside of a sh.e.l.l.

There was no hope there.

He looked about him. On his right a narrow ledge, gra.s.s-grown, trickled darkly across the face of the cliff, inclining upwards and out of sight. It would give him foothold, and no more.

He took it tremblingly, sidling along, his face pressed close to the cliff, his hands finding finger-hold on the ridges and irregularities above his head.