As soon as the noise and bustle of laying in the sweeps, lowering the sails, and unstepping the masts, had subsided, we heard Somers hail the boat, and insist that the captain should come up before any of the others, as there was a difficulty about the carts which he alone could settle. The reply was a growl of assent, and we could hear by the click of the check to the cog-wheel of the windlass that Somers was paying out the rope. Presently Cocquerel was heard to get into the cradle I have spoken of, to which a line was fastened in order to steady his ascent from below. The order was given to turn away, and the renewed click, click, announced that he was ascending the face of the cliff. I could hardly comprehend this man[oe]uvre, which seemed to indicate the escape of the man we were the most anxious to secure, and the order to shove off was just on my lips when a powerful blue-light flamed suddenly forth, accompanied by a fierce but indistinct shout, or roar rather, from Somers. The men replied by a loud cheer, and we shot smartly out; but having, to avoid a line of reef, to row in a straight direction for about a cable's length, the smugglers, panic-stricken and bewildered as they were, had time to get way upon their lugger, and were plying their sweeps with desperate energy before the revenue-boat was fairly turned in direct pursuit. The frantic effort to escape was vain, and so was the still more frantic effort at resistance offered when we ran alongside. We did not hurt them much; one or two were knocked down by the sailors' brass-butted pistols; and after being secured, they had leisure to vent their rage in polyglot curses, part French, part English, and part Guernsey _patois_, and I to look round and see what had become of Cocquerel. The blue-light still shed a livid radiance all around, and to my inexpressible horror and dismay, I saw that the unfortunate man was suspended in the rope cradle, within about a fathom's length of the brow of the cliff, upon which Somers was standing and gazing at his victim with looks of demoniac rage and triumph. The deadly trap contrived by the inexorable old man was instantly apparent, and to Cocquerel's frenzied screams for help I replied by shouting to him to cut himself loose at once, as his only chance, for the barrel of a pistol gleamed distinctly in the hands of Somers. "Lieutenant Warneford," cried the exulting maniac--he was nothing less--"I have caught this Cocquerel nicely for you--got him swinging here in the prettiest cradle he was ever rocked in in his life--Ha! ha! ha! "Cut loose at once!" I again shouted; and the men, as terribly impressed as myself, with the horror of the wretched smuggler's position, swept the boat rapidly toward the spot. "Somers, if you shoot that man you shall die on the gallows."