Chapter 2 - Page 2

gave a few precautionary orders to the men in the boat, and proceeded to
the difficult task of ascending the rocks. Notwithstanding the great
daring and personal agility of Barnstable, he would have been completely
baffled in this attempt, but for the assistance he occasionally received
from his cockswain, whose prodigious strength and great length of limbs
enabled him to make exertions which it would have been useless for most
men to attempt. When within a few feet of the summit, they availed
themselves of a projecting rock to pause for consultation and breath,
both of which seemed necessary for their further movements.

"This will be but a bad place for a retreat, if we should happen to fall
in with enemies," said Barnstable. "Where are we to look for this pilot,
Mr. Merry, or how are we to know him; and what certainty have you that
he will not betray us?"

"The question you are to put to him is written on this bit of paper,"
returned the boy, as he handed the other the word of recognition; "we
made the signal on the point of the rock at yon headland, but, as he
must have seen our boat, he will follow us to this place. As to his
betraying us, he seems to have the confidence of Captain Munson, who has
kept a bright lookout for him ever since we made the land."

"Ay," muttered the lieutenant, "and I shall have a bright lookout kept
on him now we are _on_ the land. I like not this business of
hugging the shore so closely, nor have I much faith in any traitor. What
think you of it, Master Coffin?"

The hardy old seaman, thus addressed, turned his grave visage on his
commander, and replied with a becoming gravity:

"Give me a plenty of sea-room, and good canvas, where there is no
occasion for pilots at all, sir. For my part, I was born on board a
chebacco-man, and never could see the use of more land than now and then
a small island to raise a few vegetables, and to dry your fish--I'm sure
the sight of it always makes me feel uncomfortable, unless we have the
wind dead off shore."

"Ah! Tom, you are a sensible fellow," said Barnstable, with an air half
comic, half serious. "But we must be moving; the sun is just touching
those clouds to seaward, and God keep us from riding out this night at
anchor in such a place as this."

Laying his hand on a projection of the rock above him, Barnstable swung
himself forward, and following this movement with a desperate leap or
two, he stood at once on the brow of the cliff. His cockswain very
deliberately raised the midshipman after his officer, and proceeding
with more caution but less exertion, he soon placed himself by his side.

When they reached the