iscovered that he more than half believed that this was to
be his last night on earth; for though determined for my sake, as well
as for the wife and child dependent on him, to attempt an escape from
the cave by means of the raft, he did not doubt that the chances were
very much against his ever reaching the shore. So, for the sake of the
youngster at his side, he hid his fears and made light of the uncertain
future. Such was George Woodley, and as such I like to remember him:
on the highroad a mail-coach guard, in the presence of death a very
gallant gentleman.

The day had been tiring as well as anxious, and in spite of cold and
discomforts my heavy eyelids began at length to droop and my head to
nod, until before long my troubles were swallowed up in blissful
forgetfulness.

I must have slept some hours, totally unconscious of what was going on
around me. I have a distinct recollection that I was dreaming of
making a journey by coach as an inside passenger. Mile by mile we went
rumbling on; it was windy, for the blast came in gusts through the open
windows, and roared in the tops of the wayside trees. We stopped to
change horses, and as I looked out an hostler lifted a pail of water
and, with a shout, flung it in my face!

I awoke gasping and choking. The water and the shout had been no
dream, nor, for that matter, the unceasing sound which had seemed to me
the noise of the wind and the lumbering vehicle. The next instant my
arm was seized and shaken by Woodley.

"Rouse up, Master Eden!" he cried; "rouse up, sir! There's a storm
coming on, and the sea is splashing over the rock!"

CHAPTER XV.

IN DESPERATE STRAITS.

Dazed by the sudden alarm, I lay for a moment hardly knowing where I
was; then another lash of icy cold water across my face brought me to
my senses, and I sprang to my feet.

Never shall I forget those terrible moments as we stood in pitchy
darkness, relieved only by the faint, uncanny, phosphorescent light of
the sea-water. The thudding boom of a big wave striking against the
cliff and bursting in through the narrow archway, then the peculiar
hollow sound the water made as it rushed along the cavern, and the
fierce splash with which it expended its force against our
platform--all are sounds which seem to echo in my ears even now as I
write.

"The wind's come at last!" shouted George, and added something further
which I could not catch.

"We're safe here," I answered at the t