“You won’t chase me now!” he shrieked. “That will teach you a lesson! That will teach you something!”
Frank scrambled to his feet. He was white with anger. The maniac’s action had endangered their lives.
“We’ll teach you!” he shouted. “Don’t do a trick like that again. Come down off those rocks before you fall and break your neck.”
“I won’t come down.”
Captain Royal shook his fist at them again, wheeled about and then continued his perilous climb. The boys hastened in pursuit. They knew that the old man might turn and cast another rock down the path, but they were determined to save him from the consequences of his own folly if they could.
The fog had left the rocks and the path slippery and treacherous. At almost every step the boys stumbled. It was almost impossible to maintain one’s footing as the path grew steeper. As for Captain Royal, he was no better off, and more than once he went sprawling on all fours, only to pick himself up again and resume his hazardous progress.
At last he reached the top of the cliff.
The boys were still many yards from the summit. Captain Royal made no attempt at caution as he ran along the narrow path. The rocks were slippery under foot.
“He’ll go over, as sure as fate!” exclaimed Frank.
Scarcely were the words out of his mouth when the boys saw Captain Royal stumble. He lurched sideways, his arms thrashed the air as he vainly grabbed for support, he gave a desperate yell. The boys gave a simultaneous cry of terror as they saw the man plunge through the air, over the side of the cliff, down toward the water far below!
XXII
In Swirling Waters
The boys looked at one another in awe.
Their ears still rang with Captain Royal’s last dreadful cry as he went hurtling over the cliff toward the watery depths.
“He’s gone!” gasped Chet. “I knew something like that would happen. He slipped on the rocks.”
Frank, however, was already slipping and stumbling back down the path toward the beach.
“There’s still a chance,” he shouted to the others. “He may be alive yet. If we hurry we may be able to get him out of the water before he drowns. The tide’s coming in, so he may be washed ashore.”
It was a slim chance, he knew. Captain Royal had fallen from a great height and perhaps the impact of his collision with the water had rendered him unconscious. From the path, the boys could not see where the old man had struck the water, so they could not know if he had come to the surface as yet.
The boys scrambled down the path, almost risking their necks in the pellmell descent. Rocks and pebbles went skittering before them as they plunged toward the beach.
All their resentment against Captain Royal because he had hurled the rock at them and because he had threatened them, had vanished in their concern for his safety. They realized that he was not responsible for his actions and that his eccentricities were the fruits of a disordered mind. They had done their best to save him from going over the cliff. This was some consolation. But the very thought of such a horrible death made them shudder.
“He’ll be battered to pieces on the rocks!” panted Joe.
“If we get there in time we may be able to save him,” returned Frank. “Of course, it’s ten chances to one that he was killed by the fall.”
They reached the rocks of the shore at last, Frank and Joe in front, Chet and Biff stumbling breathlessly along behind. The boys raced down the beach toward the base of the cliff from which Captain Royal had fallen. It was invisible to them from where they were, but as they skirted a ledge of rock they saw the steep wall of the precipice.
It descended to a raging foam of angry waters, where the surf beat among the black pinnacles of rock projecting from the sea at the base of the cliff.
“He hasn’t a chance in the world,” declared Chet, when he viewed the gloomy scene.
Fog hung over the shore, and through it loomed the black cliff and the cruel rocks. They could see no sign of Captain Royal in the waves.
However, the boys hastened on toward the base of the cliff, approaching as near as they dared. Frank scanned the water in vain for a glimpse of a bobbing figure being cast in toward the shore.
“He wouldn’t live ten seconds in that sea!” declared Biff, with conviction.
“I’m afraid you’re right, Biff,” replied Frank sadly. “I guess we’ll never see the poor old chap again.”
“Pretty tough,” said Chet. “After all, he didn’t know what he was doing. He was just crazy. He should have been somewhere in a place where his friends could look after him.”
“And now,” put in Joe, “we’ll probably never know if he was Todham Todd or not.”
Chet looked up, interested.
“What’s that?” he asked.
But before Joe could explain further, Frank gave a shout of excitement.
“I see him! Look!”
He pointed toward the black rocks at the base of the cliff. There, in the midst of the tossing waves, they had a momentary glimpse of a limp figure, an upturned face among the dark waters. There was no doubt that this was Captain Royal, but whether he was alive or dead they could not tell.
A gigantic wave picked up the body and hurled it toward the dark rocks again. Somehow, the limp form was thrown clear, otherwise it would have been battered to pieces, and it tumbled into a quiet pool beyond the jagged pinnacles. There the body lay, face upward, arms flung helplessly out.
“We’ve got to get him out of that,” declared Frank, taking off his coat.
“How can we?”
“You’ll be smashed to pieces against the rocks!” exclaimed Biff.
“I’m going to risk it anyway.”
“You’d better wait for low tide.”
“Too late then.”
“Frank, don’t be foolish!” cried Joe, in alarm. “You’ll never be able to make it.”
But Frank was obdurate.
“I can
