A
stealthy, satisfied smile glowed upon Samuela's rugged visage, and, as
he caught my eye, he said jauntily, "Polly savee too much. Lookee him
come on top one time!" I looked, and sure enough there was the daring
villain crawling up among the kelp far out of reach of the hungry
rollers. It was a marvellous exhibition of coolness and skill.

Without waiting an instant, he began to stalk the goat, dodging amongst
the bushes with feet that clung to the steep sides of the cliff as well
as the animal's. Before he could reach her, she had winded him, and was
off up the track. He followed, without further attempt to hide himself;
but, despite his vigour and ability, would, I fancy, have stood a
microscopic chance of catching her had she not been heavy with kid. As
it was, he had all his work cut out for him. When he did catch her, she
made so fierce it struggle for life and liberty that, in the endeavour
to hold her, he missed his insecure foothold, and the pair came tumbling
over and over down the cliff in a miniature avalanche of stones and
dust. At the bottom they both lay quiet for a time; while I anxiously
waited, fearing the rash fool was seriously injured; but in a minute or
two he was on his feet again.

Lashing the goat to his body, and ignoring her struggles, he crawled
out as far among the rocks as he could; then, at the approach of a big
breaker, he dived to meet it, coming up outside its threatening top like
a life-buoy. I pulled in, as near as I could venture, to pick him
up, and in a few minutes had him safely on board again, but suffering
fearfully. In his roll down the cliff he had been without his trousers,
which would have been some protection to him. Consequently, his thighs
were deeply cut and torn in many places, while the brine entering so
many wounds, though a grand styptic, must have tortured him unspeakably.
At any rate, though he was a regular stoic to bear pain, he fainted
while I was "dressing him down" in the most vigorous language I could
command for his foolhardy trick. Then we all realized what he must
be going through, and felt that he was getting all the punishment he
deserved, and more. The goat, poor thing! seemed none the worse for her
rough handling.

The mate gave the signal to get back on board just as Polly revived, so
there were no inconvenient questions asked, and we returned alongside in
triumph, with such a cargo of fish as would have given us a good month's
pay all round could