The Boy Tar. Reid Mayne

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СКАЧАТЬ I not raise a resting-place from below? Why not make a platform by building stones around the post, until they had reached above watermark, and then stand upon these? The very thing itself. A few stones, I had noticed already, were piled around the base, no doubt placed there to make the staff more firm. It would only be to bring up more stones, build them into a cairn, and then get on the top of them!

      Delighted with this new project of safety, I lost not a moment in setting about carrying it into effect. There were plenty of loose boulders lying over the reef, and I supposed that in a few minutes I could heap up enough of them to serve the purpose; but I had not worked long before I perceived that the job would occupy me longer than I had anticipated. The stones were slippery, and this hindered me greatly in carrying them – some were too heavy for me, and others that I had supposed to be loose, I found to be half buried in sand, and held so fast that I could not draw them out.

      Notwithstanding these impediments, I worked on with all the strength and energy I could command. I knew that in time I could raise the cairn as high as required, but time had now become the all-engrossing subject of my thoughts.

      The tide had long since turned; it was rising; slowly and continuously it was lipping nearer and nearer – slowly but with certainty was it coming; and I perceived all this!

      I had many a fall, as I scrambled to and fro; and my knees were bleeding from contact with the hard stones; but these were not matters to grieve about, nor was it a time to give way to hardships, however painful to endure. A far greater hardship threatened – the loss of life itself – and I needed no urging to make me persevere with my work.

      I had raised the pile up to the height of my head before the tide had yet risen over the rocks, but I knew that this would not be high enough. Two feet more was wanted to bring the top of my cairn on a level with high-water mark; and to accomplish this I slaved away without thinking of a moment’s rest. The work as it went on became more difficult. The loose stones that lay near had all been used, and I was obliged to go far out on the reef to procure others. This led to a great many severe falls, in which both my hands and knees were badly bruised; besides, it prevented me from making rapid progress. There was another cause that delayed me. At the height of four feet the pile was on a level with the crown of my head, and it was with difficulty I could place the stones higher up. Each one occupied me for minutes, and sometimes a heavy boulder which I had succeeded in getting up, would roll back again, endangering my limbs in its fall.

      In fine, after labouring for a long time – two hours, or more – my work was brought to a termination. Not that it was done – far from it. Unfortunately, it was not terminated, but interrupted. What interrupted it I need hardly tell you, as you will guess that it was the tide. Yes, it was the tide, which, as soon as it had fairly begun to cover the stones, seemed to rush over them all at once. It did not recoil, as I have often seen it do upon the beach. There it flows in gradually, wave after wave; but upon the reef – the surface of which was nearly of equal height – the water, at the first rush, swept all over the rocks, and was soon of a considerable depth.

      I did not leave off my exertions until long after the rocks were covered. I worked until I was knee deep in water, bending down to the surface, almost diving under it, detaching great stones from their bed, and carrying them in my arms towards the pile. I toiled away, with the spray spitting in my face, and sometimes great sheets of it breaking over my body, until I feared it would drown me – toiled on till the water grew so deep and the sea so strong, that I could not longer keep my footing upon the rocks; and then, half-wading, half-swimming, I brought my last stone to the heap, and hoisted it up. Climbing after, I stood upon the highest point of the battery I had erected, with my right arm closely hugging the shaft of the signal. In this attitude, and with trembling heart, I watched the inflow of the tide.

      Chapter Eleven.

      The Returning Tide

      To say that I awaited the result with confidence would not be at all true. Quite the contrary. Fear and trembling were far more the characteristics of my mind in that hour. Had I been allowed more time to build my cairn – time to have made it high enough to overtop the waves, and firm enough to resist them, I should have felt less apprehension. I had no fear that the signal-staff would give way. It had been well proved, for there had it stood defying the storm as long as I could remember. It was my newly-raised cairn that I dreaded, both its height and its durability. As to the former, I had succeeded in raising it five feet high, just within one foot of high-water mark. This would leave me to stand a foot deep in water, nor did I regard that in the light of a hardship. It was not on this account I had such uncomfortable imaginings. It was altogether a different thought that was vexing me. It was the doubt I entertained of the faithfulness of this watermark. I knew that the white line indicated the height of the full tide under ordinary circumstances, and that when the sea was calm, the surface would coincide with the mark; but only when it was dead calm. Now it was not calm at that moment. There was enough of breeze to have raised the waves at least a foot in height – perhaps two feet. If so, then two-thirds, or even three-fourths, of my body would be under water – to say nothing of the spray which would be certain to drive around me. This, however, was still far less than I had to fear. Supposing that the breeze should continue to freshen – supposing a storm should come on – nay, even an ordinary gale – then, indeed, the slight elevation which I had obtained above the surface would be of no avail; for during storms I had often observed the white spray lashing over that very reef, and rising many feet above the head of the signal-staff.

      “Oh! if a storm should arise, then am I lost indeed!”

      Every now and then was I pained with such an apprehension.

      True, the probabilities were in my favour. It was the fair month of May, and the morning of that day one of the finest I had ever seen. In any other month, a storm would have been more regular; but there are storms even in May, and weather that on shore may seem smiling and bright, is, for all that, windy and gusty upon the bosom of the broad sea, and causes destruction to many a fine ship. Moreover, it did not need to be a hurricane; far less than an ordinary gale would be sufficient to overwhelm me, or sweep me from the precarious footing upon which I stood.

      Another apprehension troubled me: my cairn was far too loosely put together. I had not attempted to make any building of the thing; there was not time for that. The stones had been hurled or huddled on top of one another, just as they dropped out of my hands; and as I set my feet upon them I felt they were far from firm. What if they should not prove enough so to resist the current of the returning tide, or the lashing of the waves? Should they not, then indeed I had laboured in vain. Should they fall, I must fall with them, never again to rise!

      No wonder that this added another to the many doubts I had to endure; and as I thought upon such a mischance occurring, I again looked eagerly outward, and ran my eyes in every direction over the surface of the bay, only, as on every other occasion, to meet with sad disappointment.

      For a long time I remained in the exact position I had first assumed – that is with my arm thrown round the signal-staff, and hugging it as if it were a dear friend. True, it was the only friend I had then; but for it an attempt to have built the cairn would have been vain. Even could I have raised it to the full height, it is neither likely that it would have stood the water or that I could have held my position upon it. Without the staff to hold on to, I could not have balanced my body on its top.

      This position, then, I kept, almost without moving a muscle of my body. I dreaded even to change my feet from one stone to another lest the movement might shake the pile and cause it to tumble down, and I knew that if once down, there would be no chance to build it up again. The time was past for that. The water all around the base of the staff was now beyond my depth. I could not have moved a step without swimming.

      I passed most of the time in gazing over the water; though I did not move my body, I kept constantly turning my neck. Now looking before, then СКАЧАТЬ