Prisoners of Chance

"Can you distinguish any outline yonder?" I queried eagerly, pointing as I spoke, and feeling fearful lest my eyes had been deceived by fleeting night shadows.

Resting upon his breast, one hand shading his eyes, he peered long in the direction indicated before venturing to reply.

"There is a shade of something yonder," he admitted at last. "It rises a trifle above us, and almost directly out from this edge. 'T is hard to say of what it consists, yet 'tis of a peculiar shape, causing me to think of the foreyard of a big ship."

"Exactly what I name it," I replied, set at ease by his prompt decision. "How far would you suppose the thing to lie from where we are?"

He studied the barely visible object long and carefully, shading his eyes again with his hands the better to concentrate his gaze upon that misty blot.

"It is like a jump in the dark, my son, to attempt guessing at so visionary a thing. At times it seemeth to fade away altogether, yet back it cometh once more into the same spot; from where I lie it might be twenty, or it might be forty, feet."

"Saint Giles! not so bad a guess either. I figured it at thirty this afternoon from the bank below, nor am I apt to prove far wrong in such judgment. Truss up this confounded skirt of mine, while I uncoil the rope for a toss."

He opened his eyes wide in amazement.

"Do you hope to cast the loop over the end of the spar?"

"Ay, that offers the only opening to get aboard unobserved," I replied, loosening as I spoke the slender rope coil from about my waist. "Nor would it be any trick if the light were a trifle better. As it is, I may miss a throw or two in getting firm hold. It would prove risky business attempting to pass across a line insecure at one end. Lie down now, père, and keep as quiet as if you were dead."

In instant obedience to my words the priest stretched himself at full length behind the low wooden gutter. Rising cautiously to my feet, I passed the cord with utmost care through my fingers, testing its strands again, making certain it remained perfectly free for the toss. For a moment I stood thus, swaying forward at the very edge of the roof, my eyes measuring again and again the hazy, uncertain distance stretching away toward that slight undulating shadow. It was practically impossible to determine where the extreme end of the spar terminated in air, yet as nearly as possible I made selection for my point of aim, and, with three noiseless circles about my head to give it impetus, shot the rope forth into the dense gloom. I heard the opening noose strike something which rattled sharply in the intense silence. Then the line slipped, hung limp, and finally fell dangling down over the edge of the roof. It had failed to catch, and I crouched low, making no effort to draw the loose end back. With the first sound of the blow against the spar the steady tramping across the deck ceased. A moment, and a gruff voice hailed in vigorous Spanish from out the darkness: "Aloft there! Who is on the foreyard?"