The Burning Bridge by Philip Verrill Mighels (the best novels to read TXT) 📕

it deeply, but a tiny crevice extended so nearly through the remaining substance that a trickle of water already oozed downward towards the sea. The perpendicular wall here also was broken, a number of fragments of exceptional size appearing so loose as to threaten toppling over.

Grenville was leisurely in all this examination. He was either obliged to permit his body to dry in the air or dress while dripping wet. Yet at length he was once more clothed and ready to depart. He remained for a moment, taking a final survey of the place and planning the details of his blasting operations, then stooped and made his exit from the place.

The brilliant light of outer day bewildered him momentarily. He stared below, however, as if he felt he might be blind. The raft was not where he had left it.

Hastily scrambling down the incline of the ledge, he promptly arrived at its base. His view was limited, even then, to a segment of the open, purple sea. But the worst of his fears was confirmed. The raft had floated away. It was nowhere to be seen!

The tide had run out with amazing swiftness. Its level was such that the ceaseless swells ran under his ledge, instead of up about it. The creeper-cord, which he had utilized to moor his craft to the bowlders, hung uselessly over the edge. It had parted at once when the ponderous raft had been caught in the swirl of an eddy.

This eddy was running intermittently, as Grenville soon discovered. Disgust with himself for his carelessness, and a vague disquiet concerning his helpless situation, addressed his comprehension together. He was bounded by huge overhanging walls and a water abounding in sharks. If only by boat could the cavern be reached, then only by boat——

He thought of his ladder, dangling in air where he had left it, and believed for a second he could hook it in with his pole, still lying on the rocks. But no sooner had he climbed a little up the ledge, to a point from which the ladder could be seen, than he realized the folly of his hope. It was twenty feet off at the least, and fully eight above the water.

The fact that the tide was continuing to fall, that the raft had doubtless departed the island forever, and that night might find him here, a helpless prisoner, was no great motive for alarm. But Grenville was not slow to realize that escape from his predicament would be no more readily accomplished on the morrow than it could to-day—that high tide and low tide were alike of no avail to return him to the terrace and Elaine.

The thought of Elaine and the fears she must certainly experience, did he fail to return that night, aroused a new impatience in his blood. He could almost have made up his mind to slip overboard at once and take his chances of swimming about the base of the wall, despite its treacherous currents, had he not remembered the sharks.

"It's the ladder—or night," he murmured, paraphrasing Wellington's utterance at Waterloo, somewhat grimly, and again he went down to the edge of the shelf of rock left dripping by the tide.

"Elaine!" he called, with a lusty breath, yet without an accent of distress. "Elaine! ... Elaine! ... Are you there?"

There was no response, save the swashing of the waves, which he knew were constantly retreating, leaving the ladder yet more high above the heaving surface.

Once more he shouted as before, perhaps a trifle louder. And again he heard no reply. He began to fear the shelf of rock that projected out above him might send the sound waves too far outwards, towards the sea, for Elaine on the terrace to hear.

He had no alternative but to shout repeatedly. This he did, at regular intervals, all the time striving to eliminate the slightest accent that would rouse her sense of fear. It seemed, however, as if no sort of cry could bring a response from the top. He moved to another position at last and tried with a longer, shriller tone.

"Yes! Yes!" came a bright, clear call, at last. "Can you hear me now any better?"

She had answered before, as he instantly knew, but her voice had been snatched afar from the cliff by a circular current of wind.

"All right!" shouted Grenville, enormously relieved. "I'm down here below and I'd rather return by the ladder. Can you hear me quite distinctly?"

"Oh, yes!" cried Elaine, whose fears were vast, though she would not betray them in her voice. "Do you want me to change it—or something?"

"A trifle, yes—as I'll direct you." He paused for a moment to make his directions as clear and concise as possible. Then he shouted:

"First move a few of the rocks to a point as near the edge as possible and about ten feet to the left of the present position.... Is that clear?"

"Yes—very clear—quite clear—— And then?"

"Then lift off the others and remove the ladder—carefully. Mind it's just a bit heavy."

He paused, and she cried: "Yes! I hear you!"

"Take the ladder at once to the rocks already placed and roll them on its end, to hold it down."

"Then heap all the others upon it?" Her question came ringing down the cliff.

"Yes—and as promptly—— But don't overtax your strength."

There was no reply to this final instruction. That the quickest of action was highly essential, she had felt in the very air. She was hotly, valiantly tugging at the rocks before his last words had died upon the breeze.

He presently saw the ladder-end jerk about spasmodically and ascend for perhaps a foot. Elaine had the weight of it in her hands—and her strength was equal to the task!

He watched it, his heart wildly thrilling at the thought of her ready wit and courage—her certain, sturdy helpfulness in every trying crisis.

With more wild gyrations about the ledge, the ladder-end now disappeared. It was gone for a moment only, to return at a point more directly above his head. Here it halted, moved about uncertainly, then lowered jerkily downward, to dangle at last with its last rung all but on the water, some eight or ten feet away. He knew that its upper end was lightly anchored and would soon be firmly held in place.

He caught up his pole, with the hook at its end, to fish the ladder inward. But, fearing that any untimely tug might fetch it all doubling down the cliff, he instantly halted the maneuver and compelled himself to wait.

Five minutes went by—five ages for slowness of movement. He was certain by then Elaine had made the end too secure to be readily dislodged. He stepped to the outermost edge of the shelf, with the pole horizontally extended.

It was short by perhaps six inches. Strain as he would, he could not reach either one of the rungs or supports. A light puff of wind then bent it slightly inward, and he fished out wildly, in the hope the discrepancy thus amended might be wholly overcome.

But his hook still prodded the empty air, while the zephyrs that played with the dangling thing seemed solely bent on his torture. The sweat oozed out on his temples, for the straining made him warm. A sense of disappointment amounting almost to despair attacked him for a moment.

"I shall leap out and swim!" he told himself, at last. "I'll not remain here for the night!"

He returned to the point from which Elaine had finally been heard.

She did not immediately answer when he called as he had before. When her voice came down, he was certain her breath was broken.

"I've—carried the last rock—over—and one or two—extra, besides."

"Right ho!" responded Grenville, cheerfully. "You might stand away while I test it."

He knew that a sudden throwing of his weight upon the ladder might suffice to fetch it down. He could not be sure that, with all her ready helpfulness and promptness, Elaine had so heaped the rocks above as to make the thing secure.

"I can always get back here for the night," he murmured to himself, as he scanned the swirl below. "And when it calms down from that bally twist——"

The whirlpool was even then subsiding, in its intermittent way. He quickly ascended the sloping ledge, the better to run and leap far outward. His pole he dropped upon the rocks as he hung there poised for his plunge. His eyes were keenly fixed on the tide.

The waters became quiescent. Swiftly Grenville darted down the ledge, leaping well out, towards the end of the ladder. He was fairly in midair when his gaze was directed to a dark form loafing in the depths.

Before he struck, by some quick flirt the huge form rose, coming inward, and a black fin cut through the waves.

CHAPTER XXIV A DREADED VISITOR

What it was that happened when he felt the waters swiftly rising all about him Grenville could never have told. He was almost certain his foot had come in contact with a heavy, pulpy surface, like a wet thing made of rubber, as he did his utmost to strike his assailant with his heel.

He could only be certain that he seemed to plunge downward interminably, and that afterwards a horrible rush of waters, lashed to violence, was sounding wildly in his ears and confusing his staring eyes.

Then he came to the top with a sickening conviction, that one of his legs would be gone almost before he could feel the incisions of the teeth where the shark was closing upon it. He lurched tremendously forward in the water, to close the short but vital gap between himself and the ladder.

It seemed to him then a nightmare must be binding his limbs to inaction—that incredible time was elapsing while he still remained in the tide. As a matter of fact, he had moved with prodigious energy, his strokes and velocity through the water phenomenally swift. And, when he caught at the lowermost rung, he shot from the depths like some weirdly living projectile, doubled up in a knot by its speed.

For his knees were drawn sharply upward, and hand over hand he scaled up his swaying support. But his ears heard the hiss where that terrible fin was cutting the waves beneath him. One quick glance he sped to the place comprehended the turning monster's belly, the open mouth, and even the hideous nose that shot beneath his very foot like the point of a speeding torpedo.

To the round above he scrambled no less galvanically—only to feel a sudden giving of the ladder. A wild conviction of the structure's insecurity above—its giving way beneath the incautious strain he had unavoidably put upon it—scorched its way into his brain, while he still looked down upon the shark.

But that one slip ended as abruptly as it had come. It was all in the rung he had clutched in desperate violence, and not in the ladder itself. Elaine's rock anchorage was firm!

A swift and weakening reaction now ensued in all his being, as he clung there, dripping but safe. He leaned on the ladder-rung heavily, to regain his breath and strength. He was panting and all but exhausted for the moment. When at length he resumed the upward climb, the shark was no longer to be seen.

He paused a bit longer on the shelving ledge above to gather his wits in proper order.

"Sidney!" he heard. "Are you coming? Are you there?"

"Well, rather!" he called out, cheerily. "Stopped like a kid to—examine the geological formation." He started upward promptly, whistling as he went.

It was not, however, without a tremendous effort that he finally pulled himself over the brink, in all the weight of his soaking garments, and struggled to his feet.

"Why—you're wet!" said Elaine, concealing her hands, which were cut and bruised from the heavy stones she had carried. "Did you have to swim to get the ladder?"

He knew her hands were hurt, but maintained his usual manner.

"I did. But the water is warm—in fact,