Lance's clambering was a harder matter, for he did not venture to
trust much to the rope, though the girl's strength was added to that
of the two boys; and it was a severe climb up the scarcely indented,
slippery, moist, slimy rock, where his hands and feet could hardly
find any hold; and when at length he reached the top, he was so
panting and dizzy, that Somerville at first held him to hinder his
slipping backward into the sea. No one could get at King or Queen
Daisiana, so it was left in its glory; while the young people
struggled back over rocks that seemed much steeper, and pools far
deeper, than in their advance; Lance still trying to be helpful, but
with a mazed sense of the same sort of desperate effort with which he
had run back with Bill's verses; for not only had his small strength
been overtaxed, but the immersion in water was affecting his head.
Lord Francis had made much quicker progress; and boy as he was,
showed his breeding by not rushing open-mouthed on the party with his
intelligence, but seeking the Captain, who was smoking the pipe of
solitude upon a rock apart. He at once sent Frank to the servants,
who were enjoying the relics of the feast, to fetch some wine, and
tell the boat's crew to make ready at once, and then went off himself
to seek Mrs.
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