They saw that they had made a mistake. They should have stayed among the sand-ridges, and sought shelter in some of the deep gullies that divided them. They bethought them of going back; but a moment"s deliberation was sufficient to convince them that this was no longer practicable. There would not be time, scarce even to re-enter the ravine, before their pursuers would be upon them.
It was an instinct that had caused them to rush towards the sea, their habitual home, for which they had thoughtlessly sped, notwithstanding their late rude ejection from it. Now that they stood upon its sh.o.r.e, as if appealing to it for protection, it seemed still desirous of spurning them from its bosom, and leaving them without mercy to their merciless enemies.
A line of breakers trended parallel to the water"s edge, scarce a cable"s length from the sh.o.r.e, and not two hundred yards from the spot where they had come to a pause.
They were not very formidable breakers, only the tide rolling over a sand-bar, or a tiny reef of rocks. It was at best but a big surf, crested with occasional flakes of foam, and sweeping in successive swells against the smooth beach.
What was there in all this to fix the attention of the fugitives, for it had? The seething flood seemed only to hiss at their despair.
And yet almost on the instant after suspending their flight, they had turned their faces towards it, as if some object of interest had suddenly shown itself in the surf. Object there was none, nothing but the flakes of white froth and the black vitreous waves over which it was dancing.
It was not an object, but a purpose that was engaging their attention, a resolve that had suddenly sprung up within their minds, almost as suddenly to be carried into execution. After all, their old home was not to prove so inhospitable. It would provide them with a place of concealment.
The thought occurred to all three almost at the same instant of time; though Terence was the first to give speech to it.
"By Saint Patrick!" he exclaimed, "let"s take to the wather! Them breakers "ll give us a good hiding-place. I"ve hid before now in that same way, when taking a moonlight bath on the coast of owld Galway. I did it to scare my schoolfellows, by making believe I was drowned. What say ye to our trying it?"
His companions made no reply. They had scarce even waited for the wind-up of his harangue. Both had equally perceived the feasibility of the scheme; and yielding to a like impulse, all three started into a fresh run, with their faces turned towards the sea.
In less than a score of seconds, they had crossed the strip of strand; and in a similarly short s.p.a.ce of time were plunging, thigh deep, through the water; still striding impetuously onward as if the intended to wade across the Atlantic.
A few more strides, however, brought them to a stand, just inside the line of breakers, where the seething waters, settling down into a state of comparative tranquillity, presented a surface variegated with large clouts of floating froth.
Amidst this mottling of white and black, even under the bright moonlight, it would have been difficult for the keenest eye to have detected the head of a human being, supposing the body to have been kept carefully submerged; and under this confidence the mids were not slow in submerging themselves.
Ducking down, till their chins touched the water, all three were soon as completely out of sight, to any eye looking from the sh.o.r.e, as if Neptune, pitying their forlorn condition, had stretched forth his trident with a bunch of seaweed upon its p.r.o.ngs, to screen and protect them.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.
THE PURSUERS NONPLUSSED.
Not one second too soon had they succeeded in making good their entry into this subaqueous asylum. Scarce had their chins come in contact with the water, when the voices of men, accompanied by the baying of dogs, the snorting of maherries, and the neighing of horses, were heard with the gorge from which they had just issued; and in a few minutes after, a straggling crowd, composed of these various creatures, came rushing out of the ravine. Of men, afoot and on horseback, twenty or more were seen pouring forth; all, apparently, in hot haste, as if eager to be in at the death of some object pursued, that could not possibly escape capture.
Once outside the jaws of the gully, the irregular cavalcade advanced scattering by over the plain. Only for a short distance, however; for, as if by a common understanding, rather than in obedience to any command, all came to a halt.
A silence followed this halt, apparently proceeding from astonishment.
It was general, it might be said universal, for even the animals appeared to partake of it. At all events, some seconds transpired, during which the only sound heard was the sighing of the sea, and the only motion to be observed was the sinking and swelling of the waves.
The Saaran rovers on foot, as well as those that were mounted, their horses, dogs, and camels, as they stood upon that smooth plain, seemed to have been suddenly transformed into stone, and set like so many sphinxes in the sand.
In truth it was surprise that had so transfixed them, the men, at least; and their well-trained animals were only acting in obedience to a habit taught them by their masters, who, in pursuit of their predatory life, can cause these creatures to be both silent and still, whenever the occasion requires it.
For their surprise, which this exhibition of it proved to be extreme, the sons of the desert had sufficient reason. They had seen three midshipmen on the crest of the sand-ridge; had even noted the peculiar garb that bedecked their bodies, all this beyond doubt. Notwithstanding the haste with which they had entered on the pursuit, they had not continued it either in a reckless or improvident manner. Skilled in the ways of the wilderness, cautious as cats, they had continued the chase; those in the lead from time to time a.s.suring themselves that the game was still before them. This they had done by glancing occasionally to the ground, where shoe tracks in the soft sand, three sets of them, leading to and fro, were sufficient evidence that the three mids must have gone back to the embouchure of the ravine; and thither emerged upon the open sea-beach.
Where were they now?
Looking up the smooth strand, as far as the eye could reach, and down it to a like distance, there was no place where a crab could have screened itself; and these Saaran wreckers, well acquainted with the coast, knew that in neither direction was there any other ravine or gully into which the fugitives could have retreated.
No wonder then that the pursuers wondered, even to speechlessness.
Their silence was of short duration, though it was succeeded only by cries expressing their great surprise, among which might have been distinguished their usual invocations to Allah and the Prophet. It was evident that a superst.i.tious feeling had arisen in their minds, not without its usual accompaniment of fear; and although they no longer kept their places, the movement now observable among them was that they gathered closer together, and appeared to enter upon a grave consultation.
This was terminated by some of them once more proceeding to the embouchure of the ravine, and betaking themselves to a fresh scrutiny of the tracks made by the shoes of the midshipmen; while the rest sate silently upon their horses and maherries, awaiting the result.
The footmarks of the three mids were still easily traceable, even on the ground already trampled by the Arabs, their horses, and maherries. The "cloots" of a camel would not have been more conspicuous in the mud of an English road, than were the shoe-prints of the three young seamen in the sands of the Saara. The Arab trackers had no difficulty in making them out; and in a few minutes had traced them from the mouth of the gorge almost in a direct line to the sea. There, however, there was a breadth of wet sea-beach, where the springy sand instantly obliterated any foot-mark that might be made upon it, and there the tracks ended.
But why should they have extended farther? No one could have gone beyond that point, without either walking straight into the water, or keeping along the strip of sea-beach, upwards or downwards.
The fugitives could not have escaped in either way, unless they had taken to the water and committed suicide by drowning themselves. Up the coast or down it they would have been seen to a certainty.
Their pursuers, cl.u.s.tering around the place where the tracks terminated, were no wiser than ever. Some of them were ready to believe that drowning had been the fate of the castaways upon their coast, and so stated it to their companions. But they spoke only conjectures, and in tones that told them, like the rest, to be under the influence of some superst.i.tious fear. Despite their confidence in the protection of their boasted Prophet, they felt a natural dread of that wilderness of waters, less known to them than the wilderness of sand.
Ere long they withdrew from its presence; and betook themselves back to their encampment, under a half belief that the three individuals seen and pursued had either drowned themselves in the great deep, or by some mysterious means known to these strange men of the sea, had escaped across its far-reaching waters.
CHAPTER THIRTY.
A DOUBLE PREDICAMENT.
Short time as their pursuers had stayed upon the strand, it seemed an age to the submerged midshipmen.
On first placing themselves in position, they had chosen a spot where, with their knees resting upon the bottom, they could just hold their chins above water. This would enable them to hold their ground without any great difficulty, and for some time they so maintained it.
Soon, however, they began to perceive that the water was rising around them--a circ.u.mstance easily explained by the influx of the tide. The rise was slow and gradual, but for all that they saw that should they require to remain in their place of concealment for any length of time, drowning must be their inevitable destiny.
A means of avoiding this soon presented itself. Inside the line of breakers, the water shoaled gradually towards the sh.o.r.e. By advancing in this direction they could still keep to the same depth. This course they adopted, gliding cautiously forward upon their knees whenever the tide admonished them to repeat the manoeuvre.
This state of affairs would have been satisfactory enough, but for a circ.u.mstance that, every moment, was making itself more apparent. At each move they were not only approaching nearer to their enemies, scattered along the strand, but as they receded from the line of the breakers, the water became comparatively tranquil, and its smooth surface, less confused by the ma.s.ses of floating foam, was more likely to betray them to the spectators on the sh.o.r.e.
To avoid this catastrophe, which would have been fatal, they moved sh.o.r.eward only when it became absolutely necessary to do so, often permitting the tidal waves to sweep completely over the crown of their heads, and several time threaten suffocation.
Under circ.u.mstances so trying, so apparently hopeless, most lads--ay, most men--would have submitted to despair, and surrendered themselves to a fate apparently unavoidable. But with that true British pluck, combining the tenacity of the Scotch terrier, the English bulldog, and the Irish stag-hound, the three youthful representatives of the triple kingdom determined to hold on.
And they held on, with the waves washing against their cheeks, and at intervals quite over their heads, with the briny fluid rushing into their ears and up their nostrils, until one after another began to believe that there would be no alternative between surrendering to the cruel sea, or to the not less cruel sons of the Saara.
As they were close together, they could hold council, conversing all the time in something louder than a whisper. There was no risk of their being overheard. Though scarce a cable"s length from the sh.o.r.e, the hoa.r.s.e soughing of the surf would have drowned the sound of their voices, even if uttered in a much louder tone; but being skilled in the acoustics of the ocean, they exchanged their thoughts with due caution: and while encouraging one another to remain firm, they speculated freely upon the chances of escaping from their perilous predicament.
While thus occupied, a predicament of an equally perilous and still more singular kind, was in store for them. They had been hitherto advancing towards the water"s edge, in regular progression with the influx of the tide, all the while upon their knees. This, as already stated, had enabled them to sustain themselves steadily, without showing anything more than three-quarters of the head above the surface.
All at once, however, the water appeared to deepen; and by going upon their knees they could no longer surmount the waves, even with their eyes. By moving on towards the beach, they might again get into shallower water; but just at this point the commotion caused by the breakers came to a termination, and the flakes of froth, with the surrounding spray of bubbles here bursting, one after another, left the surface of the sea to its restored tranquillity. Anything beyond a cork, or the tiniest waif of seaweed, could scarce fail to be seen from the strand, though the latter was itself, constantly receding as the tide flowed inward.
The submerged middies were now in a dilemma they had not dreamed of. By holding their ground, they could not fail to "go under". By advancing farther, they would run the risk of being discovered to the enemy.
Their first movement was to get up from their knees, and raise their heads above water by standing in a crouched att.i.tude on their feet.
This they had done before, more than once, returning to the posture of supplication only when too tired to sustain themselves.