Page 514 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

Rex, eyeing the blazing pendulum, that with longer and
longer swing momentarily neared him, looked up to the
black heaven for the last time with a muttered prayer. The
bush—the flame fanned by the motion—flung a crimson
glow upon his frowning features which, as he caught the
rope, had a sneer of triumph on them. ‘Slack out! slack out!’
he cried; and then, drawing the burning bush towards him,
attempted to stamp out the fire with his feet.
The soldier set his body against the tree trunk, and
gripped the rope hard, turning his head away from the fi-
ery pit below him. ‘Hold tight, your honour,’ he muttered to
McNab. ‘She’s coming!’
The bellow changed into a roar, the roar into a shriek,
and with a gust of wind and spray, the seething sea leapt
up out of the gulf. John Rex, unable to extinguish the flame,
twisted his arm about the rope, and the instant before the
surface of the rising water made a momentary floor to the
mouth of the cavern, he spurned the cliff desperately with
his feet, and flung himself across the chasm. He had al-
ready clutched the rock, and thrust himself forward, when
the tremendous volume of water struck him. McNab and
the soldier felt the sudden pluck of the rope and saw the
light swing across the abyss. Then the fury of the water-
spout burst with a triumphant scream, the tension ceased,
the light was blotted out, and when the column sank, there
dangled at the end of the lariat nothing but the drenched
and blackened skeleton of the she-oak bough. Amid a ter-
rific peal of thunder, the long pent-up rain descended, and
a sudden ghastly rending asunder of the clouds showed far

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