Hornblower had no idea how long they had been travelling when they found themselves beside a small river, seemingly placid as it reflected the stars. On the far side faint in the darkness towered a lofty cliff. Here the party halted, and the man beside him tugged at his knee in an obvious invitation to dismount. Hornblower slid down the mule’s side — he had to lean against the animal for a moment when his legs refused to hold him up. When he was able to stand upright and look about him he saw a white face among the dark ones that surrounded him. He could just make out Spendlove, his knees sagging and his head lolling as he stood supported on either side.
“Spendlove!” he said.
There was an agonising moment of waiting before the drooping figure said, “My Lord?” The voice was thick and unnatural.
“Spendlove! Are you wounded?”
“I’m — well — My Lord.”
Someone pushed Hornblower in the back.
“Come. Swim,” said a voice.
“Spendlove!”
Several hands turned Hornblower away and thrust him stumbling down to the water’s edge. It was hopeless to resist; Hornblower could only guess that Spendlove had been stunned by a blow and was only now recovering, his unconscious body having been carried so far by mule.
“Swim,” said the voice, and a hand pressed him forward to the water.
“No!” croaked Hornblower.
The water seemed immeasurably wide and dark. Even while Hornblower struggled at the water’s edge he had a horrible realisation of the indignity he was undergoing, as a Commander-in-Chief, acting like a child in the hands of these people. Somebody led a mule slowly down into the water beside him.
“Hold his tail,” said the voice, and there was the knife in his back again.
He took hold of the mule’s tail and despairingly let himself flop into the water, spreadeagled. For a moment the mule floundered and then struck out; the water, as it closed round Hornblower, seemed hardly colder than the warm air. It was no more than a moment, it seemed, before the mule was plunging up the other bank, and Hornblower found the bottom under his feet and waded out after him, the water streaming from his clothes, the rest of the gang and the animals splashing after him. The hand was back on his shoulder, turning him to one side and urging him along. He heard an odd creaking in front of him and a swaying object struck him on the chest. His hands felt smooth bamboo and some sort of creeper, liana, knotted to it — it was a makeshift rope ladder dangling in front of him.
“Up!” said the voice. “Up!”
He could not — he would not — and there was the knife point at his back again. He stretched his arms up and grasped a rung, feeling desperately with his feet for another.
“Up!”
He began the climb, with the ladder writhing under his feet in the animal fashion rope ladders always display. It was horrible in the darkness, feeling with his feet for each elusive rung in turn, clutching desperately with his hands. His sodden shoes tended to slip on the smooth bamboo. Nor did his hands feel secure on the creeper. Someone else was climbing close after him, and the ladder twined about unpredictably. He knew himself to be swaying pendulum-fashion in the darkness. Up he went, one rung at a time, his hands gripping so convulsively that it was only by a conscious effort that he was able to make each one unclasp in turn and seek a fresh hold. Then the gyrations and swinging grew less. His upward-stretching hand touched earth, or rock. The next moment was not easy; he was unsure of his handhold and he hesitated. He knew himself to be a prodigious height up in the air. Just below him on the ladder he heard a sharp command issued by the man following him, and then a hand above him grasped his wrist and pulled. His feet found the next rung, and there he was, lying gasping on his belly on solid earth. The hand dragged at him again and he crawled on all fours forward to make room for the man behind him. He was almost sobbing; there was no trace left now of the haughty and self-satisfied human who had admired himself in the mirror not so many hours ago.
Other people trod past him.
“My Lord! My Lord!”
That was Spendlove asking for him.
“Spendlove!” he answered, sitting up.
“Are you all right, My Lord?” asked Spendlove, stooping over him.
Was it sense of humour or sense of the ridiculous, was it natural pride or force of habit, which made him take a grip on himself?
“As right as I might expect to be, thank you, after these rather remarkable experiences,” he said. “But you — what happened to you?”
“They hit me on the head,” replied Spendlove, simply.
“Don’t stand there. Sit down,” said Hornblower, and Spendlove collapsed beside him.
“Do you know where we are, My Lord?” he asked.
“Somewhere at the top of a cliff, as far as I can estimate,” said Hornblower.
“But where, My Lord?”
“Somewhere in His Majesty’s loyal colony of Jamaica. More than that I can’t say.”
“It will be dawn soon, I suppose,” said Spendlove, weakly.
“Soon enough.”
Nobody about them was paying them any attention. There was a great deal of chatter going on, in marked contrast with the silence — the almost disciplined silence — which had been preserved during their dash across country. The chatter mingled with the sound of a small waterfall, which he realised he had been hearing ever since his climb. The conversations were in a thick English which Hornblower could hardly understand, but he could be sure that their captors were expressing exultation. He could hear women’s voices, too, while figures paced about, too excited to sit down despite the fatigues of the night.
“I doubt if we’re at the top of the cliff, My Lord, if you’ll pardon me,” said Spendlove.
He pointed upwards. The sky was growing pale, and the stars were fading; vertically over their heads they could see the cliff above them, overhanging them. Looking up, Hornblower could see foliage silhouetted against the sky.
“Strange,” he said. “We must be on some sort of shelf.”
On his right hand the sky was showing a hint of light, of the palest pink, even while on his left it was still dark.
“Facing north-nor’west,” said Spendlove.
The light increased perceptibly; when Hornblower looked to the east again the pink had turned to orange, and there was a hint of green. They seemed immeasurably high up; almost at their feet, it seemed, as they sat, the shelf ended abruptly, and far down below them the shadowy world was taking form, concealed at the moment by a light mist. Hornblower was suddenly conscious of his wet clothes, and shivered.
“That might be the sea,” said Spendlove, pointing.
The sea it was, blue and lovely in the far distance; a broad belt of land, some miles across, extended between the cliff on which they were perched and the edge of the sea; the mist still obscured it. Hornblower rose to his feet, took a step forward, leaning over a low, crude parapet of piled rock; he shrank back before nerving himself to look again. Under his feet there was nothing. They were indeed on a shelf in the face of the cliff. About the height of a frigate’s mainyard, sixty feet or so; vertically below them he could see the small stream he had crossed holding the mule’s tail; the rope ladder still hung down from where he stood to the water’s edge; when, with an effort of will, he forced himself to lean out and look over he could see the mules standing dispiritedly below him in the narrow area between the river and the foot of the cliff; the overhang must be considerable. They were on a shelf in a cliff, undercut through the ages by the river below when in spate. Nothing could reach them from above, and nothing from below if the ladder were to be drawn up. The shelf was perhaps ten yards wide at its widest, and perhaps a hundred yards long. At one end the waterfall he had heard tumbled down the cliff face in a groove it had cut for itself; it splashed against a cluster of gleaming rocks and then leaped out again. The sight of it told him how thirsty he was, and he walked along to it. It was a giddy thing to do, to stand there with the cliff face at one elbow and a vertical drop under the other, with the spray bursting round him, but he could fill his cupped hands with water and drink, and drink again, before splashing his face and head refreshingly. He drew back to find Spendlove waiting for him to finish. Matted in Spendlove’s thick hair and behind his left ear and down his neck was a black clot of blood. Spendlove knelt to drink and to wash, and rose again touching his scalp cautiously.