Even if a rope had been lowered down to him from the top of the cliff, it would have been of no avail, for he realised now that which he could not see from the hole by which he had escaped, to wit, that the cliff projected above the opening, and a lowered down rope would have hung several feet right away clear.
"Get farther along," he said coolly; and he edged himself slowly along, taking hold of every prominence he found to steady himself, and passing cautiously along the rough ledge over the hole, and then onward for forty or fifty feet, where a rift ran upward, and, by cautious climbing, he mounted slowly till he was on a fresh ledge, a few feet above which was another rift, and he climbed again, to come to a depression or niche, where he stopped to rest.
"No occasion to hurry," he said to himself, and as there was plenty of room he sat down and gazed out to sea, noting a sail far away to the right, but the vessel was a schooner--it was not that which he sought.
He was apparently cool enough, but his pulses beat more rapidly than was consistent with the exertion through which he had gone, and being after a few minutes eager now to get his task at an end, he tried to the left, to find no way up there, to the right, but everywhere the rock was perpendicular, and offered no foothold; or else sloped outward, and concealed what was above.
He tried again and again, hoping against hope, but without result.
"Must be a way up," he said, evidently considering that there must be because he wanted it, and he took tightly hold of a rough corner and leaned out a little to gaze upward, to find, in whichever direction he looked, right or left, there was nothing but rugged limestone, which had been splintered and moulded by time till there was not a spot where the most venturesome climber could obtain foothold; in fact, above him he could not see a spot where even the sea-birds had been in the habit of finding a resting-place.
It was for liberty, and naturally enough the midshipman made no superficial search.

His next plan was to lie flat down in the niche he had made his temporary resting-place, lean over, and try and map out a course by which he could descend a little way and then pass along for a distance, and resume his climb upward with better chances of success.
But no; he could see no sign to help him, and, as a keen sense of disappointment assailed him that he should have got so near liberty and have to give up, he decided that the way to freedom was downward.
And now, as he looked over the edge of the shelf on which he lay, it struck him for the first time that it was a very terrible descent, and, turning his eyes away, he looked up again for a way there.
All in vain.

He was fully a hundred and twenty feet from the top of the huge cliff, and, half afraid now that he should be quite afraid, he determined to lose no time, and, going to the spot where he had crept on to the niche floor, he began to lower himself slowly down.
"Be a good thing," he said to himself, as he searched with his feet and made sure of his footing, "if one could leave all one's thoughts behind at a time like this, or only keep enough to think where to put one's feet." "Glad I haven't got on my uniform," he said a few moments later, as his breast scraped over the rough rock.
Soon after,-- "Oh, how sore my hands are! That's better." He was back in safety on the ledge over the hole, and, passing along, he had soon descended to the one beneath the exit.
"Now then," he said, as he paused for a few minutes before commencing his descent; "this will be easier." Somehow he did not feel in any hurry to begin, and he sat down with his legs hanging over the ledge, to give his nerves time to calm down, for there was a strong tendency to throb about his pulses, and he was not sufficiently conversant with the house he lived in, to know that confinement, worry, want of fresh air, and excessive work during the past few days had not given him what the doctors call "tone." So he sat there with his back to the rock, gazing out to sea again, and then watching the graceful curves made by a gull, which had risen higher and higher, and came nearer and nearer, till it was on a level with him, and watching him curiously.
"Wonder whether you think I am going to fall and let you have a pick at me," said Archy, with a forced laugh; "because I am not going to tumble, so you can be off." All the same, though, he shuddered, and he had to exercise a little force to make his new start downward.
"Best way after all," he said, as he began to descend.

"If you go up, it gets more dangerous every minute, because you have farther to fall.
If you go down, it gets safer, because you have less." He found the way now comparatively easy, for the rock sloped a little out, and he had even got down some sixty feet when he had a check.
"I don't know, though," he said, as he put a bleeding knuckle to his lips.

"Don't make much difference, I should think, whether you fall one hundred feet or five.