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Cutlass and Cudgel, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 26 |
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_ CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.
Naturally, the first thought was of further flight, but he had already convinced himself that he was again a prisoner, and as, after another glance down at the ledge below to his left, he looked up at Ram, he set his teeth, and laughed in a way that did not promise well for his pursuer. "What is he coming down for?" he said to himself, as his teeth began to set fast and his hands involuntarily to clench. "Does he think he is going to drag me up there again? He had better not try." Meanwhile Ram was descending rapidly, and sending little ambassadors down before him in the shape of pieces of rock and shale, all of which arrived at the ledge in a very inimical way, bounding off, scattering in fragments, or falling with a heavy thud. From time to time Ram looked down at his escaped prisoner, and then devoted himself to the places where he should never plant his feet, achieving the whole in the most fearless manner, and finishing with a leap which landed him near where Archy stood gazing at him, regularly at bay. Ram did not hesitate an instant, but dashed at the midshipman to seize him by the jacket, but Archy was on his mettle, and he struck out sharply, a blow in the chest and another in the right shoulder, sending the young smuggler staggering back. "Oh, that's it, is it?" cried Ram furiously. "I give you one more chance, though--will you give in, and come back quietly?" "If you attempt to come near me, you dog," said Archy slowly through his clenched teeth, "I'll knock you off here into the sea." "Will you?" cried Ram, dashing at his late prisoner again, dodging the blow struck at him, closing with his adversary; and then began a struggle which would have made the blood of an onlooker curdle, so terribly narrow and dangerous was the place where the encounter took place. Of the pair, Archy Raystoke was a little the bigger, but the smuggler's son fully made up for any deficiency by his activity, and the hardening his muscles had undergone for years. No blows were struck, the efforts of Ram being apparently directed to throwing the midshipman down, when he meant to sit upon him till he had reduced him to obedience. Archy's tactics were, of course, to prevent this, and rid himself of his adversary, as he felt all the time how horribly risky it was to struggle and wrestle there, for the ledge was six feet wide at the outside, and not much more than twice the length. But in a few minutes, as the encounter grew more hot, and they held on to each other, and swayed here and there, all thought of the position they occupied was forgotten. One minute Ram, by entwining his leg within those of his adversary, nearly threw him; then, by a dexterous effort, Archy shook himself fairly free. Then they clasped again, swayed here and there, Archy getting far the worse of the encounter from weakness, but, with a final call upon himself, he strove desperately to recover lost ground, and made so fierce an effort to throw Ram in turn, that he succeeded. His effort was not sufficiently well sustained, though, for success to have attended it, but for one fact. They had struggled to the extreme edge of the inward part of the shelf, and as the midshipman was at the end of his strength, and Ram realised it, the boy smiled, thrust back his right leg to give impetus to his next thrust, and his foot went down over the rock. There was a cry, a jerk, and the midshipman was down on his chest, as he had fallen, clinging to the edge, for the young smuggler seemed to have been snatched from his arms, and was now lying thirty feet below on the edge of a sloping rock, part of his body without support, and apparently about to glide off into the waves below. _ |
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