CHAPTER XIV.

LOST.

The stranger who had called to Sybil by name, and who had recognised her from the summit of the cliff, was no other than General Trecarrel, the same whom her parents had so studiously avoided; but who nevertheless knew her well by sight, having seen her on many occasions when riding abroad, and on Sundays at church, whither she always drove in her little pony phaeton, and he had always admired her beauty greatly.

The General was not a very old man; he was still looking for another command in India, and though in affluent circumstances was yet an enthusiastic soldier, who believed that military rank and stars and ribbons, were the only things in this world worth living for. He was nearly six feet in height--erect as a pike, and well built; his features were handsome, his eyes dark and keen; his complexion was well bronzed and dark, his short shorn hair was becoming grey and grizzled, and his manner, by force of habit, and the air to command, was brief and authoritative.

He knew in a moment the great peril of the girl on the beach below him; he saw that already the tide was chafing in white surf at each horn of the bay, round either of which she could alone escape from the watery trap that enclosed her, unless taken off the shore by a boat. The General was on foot; that part of the coast was very lonely and no house or hut was, near; but intent upon her rescue, he hurried away as fast as a limp in a wounded leg (he had received a ball at Ghuznee) would permit him, from place to place, in search of a boat; but neither boat nor fisherman could be found in time to take her off that perilous beach, ere the tide covered it.

The evening darkened quickly, and the stormy wind brought faster in the stormy sea. Near the gate-lodge of his own residence, he met Audley Trevelyan strolling leisurely in the avenue with his hands in his pockets, accompanied by his huge dog, and enjoying a cigar before the bell should ring to dress for dinner; but the havannah fairly dropped from his lips in his surprise on beholding the excited state of the usually calm and collected General Trecarrel.

"What's the row, General--what the deuce is the matter?" he asked.

"A dreadful thing will occur--if it has not already occurred--a poor girl on a solitary part of the beach yonder, has been cut off by the tide, and unless we can save her in ten minutes at farthest, all will be over--yes, in ten minutes!" added Trecarrel, looking at his gold watch--the gift of Sir John Keane, with whom he had served in the conquest of Cabul.

"Good Heavens, let us get a boat at once!"

"There is not one to be had--the pilchard fishers hereabout are all at sea!"

"Lower someone over the cliffs by a rope; I have gone myself, thus, for a chough's egg, more than once."

"The rocks are nearly two hundred feet in height in some places, and the poor girl----"

"Is she a lady, General?"

"Yes, and a handsome one, too."

"You know her then--she is not a stranger?"

"To me only--a Miss Devereaux, who resides at Porthellick."

"_Who_ do you say?" shouted Audley; "Sybil Devereaux?"

"The same."

"Merciful Heavens, let us do something at once!"

"True, but without a boat what can be done?"

"She cannot, she must not, she _shall not_ be left to perish thus, if I can save her!" exclaimed Audley Trevelyan, with all the impetuosity of youth, and with sudden emotions of terror, pity, and tenderness combined. He, usually so calm, quiet, and apparently unimpressionable, to the surprise of the General, now rushed to the stable-yard, and loudly, even fiercely summoned grooms, gardeners, and lodge-keepers, and with these carrying poles and stable-lanterns, hurried towards the seashore, while two messengers were despatched to the hut of a fisherman, who lived about a mile distant, to get his boat, or at least a coil of stout ropes, and they succeeded in securing the latter; but his boat was at sea, and was the same which Constance had seen running round the headland for shelter at Portquin.

The alarm spread rapidly, and soon a dozen of men at least were searching along the verge of the cliffs in the dusk. The sea was seen rolling its waves round all the little bay now, and the base of the cliffs was marked by a curling line of snow-white foam alone. Every vestige of sandy beach had disappeared, and so had all trace of the poor loiterer whom the General had last seen there!

Many a "halloo" was uttered, but vainly, for no response came upwards from below.

Audley Trevelyan was very pale, and very silent, though deeply excited. He was not wont to indulge in self-examination, and consequently he never knew until now how dear this girl was to him--in fact, how much he had begun to love her.

The dusk deepened into darkness, and a weird effect was given to the wild rock scenery by the fitful gleams of the lanterns carried along the edges of those perilous cliffs by the searchers, who felt that they were literally doing nothing, yet in the spirit of humanity were loth to relinquish their task, in which they were now joined by the terrified and excited servants from the villa. The wind was rising fast, and its mournful voice, as it swept through the bare branches of the old groves above the bay, mingled with the booming of the waves upon the rocks below.

Audley felt almost thankful for the gloom, as it hid the workings of his features, and like a thorough Englishman, he detested alike a scene and to be a subject for speculation; but now the deep baying of his Thibet dog among a clump of bushes and gorse, attracted the marked attention of the searchers.

"The dog has found some track or trace; he never barks thus, save for some cogent reason!" exclaimed Audley, as he hastened to the spot.

"Plaise sur, the dog do hear or see summat," added Michael Treherne, an old and decrepit miner, who in his earlier years had been an "underground captain" in Botallack mine, and one of the best wrestlers in the duchy, and who had hobbled forth, staff in hand, to assist in the search; "if the dog be on the right road, we be on the wrang. But take 'ee care, surs; there's the shaft of a main old mine hereabouts; and out of it, in its time, there have come many a keenly lode o' tin and goodly bunch of copper."

"I know the place, Michael," cried Audley; "Heavens above! she must be in the Pixies' Hole, which, as you are all likely aware, opens into the shaft."

"Just so, Mr. Trevelyan; through that same hole, the water was pumped into the sea in my grandfeyther's time--and that warn't yesterday, sur."

"How old are you, Michael?" asked the General, lending the old man his hand.

"Seventy past; few miners live to my time, and 'tis ten years since I was underground," replied Treherne with a sigh; "I can mind o' 'ee a small booy, General, robbin' my garden o' apples."

Proceeding cautiously about a hundred yards back from the verge of the cliffs to the place where the dog was baying, they found amid the tangled gorse bushes, the mound of slag and other debris, now covered with rank grass and weeds, in the centre of which yawned the round mouth of the ancient mine; and as they drew near the dog continued to bay the louder, with its forefeet outstretched, and its nose in the air. Then it began to fawn and leap upon its master, with such ponderous gambols, that more than once he was nearly thrown to the ground.

"Down, Rajah--down, sir! keep quiet, dog," he exclaimed, and while he spoke, something like the cry of a female came to his ear; "oh, General, I see it all now! She has been driven by the tide into the Pixies' hole, and is even now on the verge of this shaft; should she be ignorant of its existence, she may fall into the mine and be dead ere she reaches the bottom!"

"It must all be over with the poor lass, Mr. Trevelyan," said the old miner, shaking his head; "hear ye _that_."

And, as they listened, they could hear above the moaning of the wind and the surging of the sea, the sound of water pouring within the shaft of the mine, and falling apparently to a vast depth below. A sense of the deep profundity that yawned before them, made all save Audley and the old miner, Treherne, shrink, with faces that seemed pale in the fitful gleams of the lanterns, and now the latter spoke again.

"Aw dear, aw dear! dost hear, sur? The tide has risen to upper mouth o' the Pixies' Hole, and is now pouring down into the lower level o' the mine, so if the poor lady beant drowned in one place, she will be at the bottom o' tother."

There seemed to be some probability of such being the case; and though Audley was horror-struck with the suggestion, he said with apparent calmness, the result of a great effort,--

"The upper mouth you speak of, Michael, is about fifty feet below where we stand; surely, the tide could never reach it, even at full flood?"

"But who will venture down to see?" asked Treherne, almost with a grin on his hard old visage.

"I shall!"

"You, Mr. Trevelyan--you, sur?"

"Yes."

"Dare you go down, Trevelyan, with that terrible sound in your ears?" asked the General, and all present murmured the same thing, save Sybil's servants, who moaned and wrung their hands.

"Dare I go down?" repeated Audley, "when a woman is in the case--a lady--Sybil Devereaux! To whom are you talking, General? Have I not for a joke taken a letter to the Devil's Post Office, and will I shrink for this?" he asked, referring to the deep and dangerous chasm at Kinance Cove, where the sea bellows for ever with a thundering sound, and from time to time hurls a column of water furiously through an aperture, when those who are adventurous enough to descend in the dark and deliver a letter, as if to the presiding Genius of the place, will find it rudely torn from their fingers by an inward current of air, accompanying the reflux of the sea. "We have blocks and tackle with us," continued Audley; "rig them to poles laid across the shaft, and by Jove, I'll go down with a lantern; quick, my lads, for God's sake lose no time!"

"Are you not afraid of gas--or foul air, Trevelyan?" asked the General.

"I don't mean to go to the bottom."

"Of course not; but if the rope should break?"

"In that case, it won't matter what I meet with," was the grimly significant reply; "but be careful, my good fellows, for I trust my life to you in this instance."

"If the tackle did break, thee'd soon be in jowds" (_i.e._, pieces), said Treherne, with a saturnine smile.

An oar and a stout pole, which two of the party carried, were laid across the mouth of the shaft.

A double-sheaved block was securely lashed to them; a strong rope was rove through the sheaves, and a species of cradle was formed for the adventurous Audley Trevelyan.

Long familiar with his native rocks, the latter when a bold boy, had clambered by Bodrigan's Leap at Portmellin,* when seeking for puffins' nests, and could look without shrinking from the steeps of Gurnard's Head, Tol Pedn Penwith, and the fantastic cliffs of Tintagel. He had been doted on by the miners, with whom he had often descended the deepest shafts, clad like themselves in flannel shirt and trousers. Thus attired, he had explored the vast levels and silent galleries by the dim light of a feeble candle, while, as Sybil told of Denzil, he could hear the roar of the Atlantic over his head, and the boulders dashed by its force on the bluffs of the Land's End; and thence beyond, in levels half a mile out at sea, where the passing ships glided like silent phantoms many a fathom far above where he wandered.

* So called from Sir Henry Bodrigan, who in the reign of Henry VII. sprang down the cliff, when flying from his neighbours Trevannion and Edgecumbe, who sought to capture or slay him. He was so little injured by the fall, that he reached a vessel sailing near the shore, and escaped to France. A mound, called the Castle Hill, and a farm-house, once part of a splendid mansion, are all that now remain of the abode of this fine old Cornish family.

Fearlessly he tied himself to the cradle which old Michael Treherne prepared for him; a lantern was hung at his neck, leaving his arms free, and now a dozen of strong and careful hands were laid on the ropes.

"Lower away, my lads," cried he, almost gaily; and with something like a gasp of anxiety in his throat, the General saw his young friend's face disappear as they lowered him into that awful orifice, the mouth of a shaft that went down a thousand feet and more.

"Steady, my booys!" cried old Treherne, in a species of glee.

Those who witnessed this descent were none of them, perhaps, very impressionable men; yet even to them, there was a gloomy horror in the idea of the vast profundity of the deserted mine, over which Trevelyan swung; and the wildness of the night, the storm at sea, the whistling and howling of the wind as it swept the rocky promontories, and rolled the waves in foam against them, were not without their due effects upon the mind.