The grey gulls were wheeling round and round, dipping down from time to
time to pick up some scrap of floating food or tiny fish from out of a
shoal; the cormorants and shags were swimming here and there, and diving
down swift as the fish themselves, in chase of victim after victim for
their ravenous maws, and the fish, crowded together, were playing about
the surface, and leaping out at times like bars of silver, to fall back
again with a splash, while the sun made the water sparkle as it rippled
and played and foamed among the rocks.
It was a glorious morning; and the heather, gorse and purple-hued
lavender blossomed, sea-pinks glistened and flashed, as the sun played
and sent off rays of dazzling iridescent hues from the evanescent gems
with which the night mists had bedewed them.
Everywhere all was life and light, save where a boat went gliding along
upon a swift current stem first, stern first, or broadside on, as the
various curves and jutting rocks at the foot of the huge cliffs affected
the hurrying waters and made them react upon the boat.
All at once there was a desperate quarrel and screaming for as a diver
rose from its plunge, and was flying towards one of the cliff shelves to
enjoy its morning meal in the shape of a large, newly caught fish, it
was attacked by a huge pirate of a black-backed gull, which pounced down
upon it with open beak, secured the fish, and as it flew off was
followed and mobbed by a score of other birds, when such a wild clamour
of sharp metallic screams arose, that it startled one of the occupants
of the boat, making him spring up, rub his eyes, stare, and then bend
down to rouse his companion.
"Here! Hi! Mike! Ladle! Wake up!"
The other obeyed, sprang to his feet, and stared wildly at his
companion, with that dull, heavy, dreamy look in the eyes, which tells
that though the muscular energy of the body may be awake, the mind is
still fast plunged in sleep.
Then both rubbed their eyes, and Vince did more: he knelt down, leaned
over the side of the boat, and plunging both hands in, scooped up the
cool sparkling water, and bathed face and temples till his brain grew
clearer, and he stood up again, dabbing his face with his handkerchief.
"Do as I do. Do you hear, Mike? I say, you're asleep!"
"Sleep?" said Mike, looking at him vacantly.
"Yes, asleep. Rouse up and look! It's wonderful! Here, if you won't,
I must. Kneel down."
He pressed upon the boy's shoulders; and Mike, without making the
slightest resistance, knelt in the bottom of the boat. He yielded too
as Vince pressed a hand upon the back of his head, and then splashed
some water in his face.
The effect was electrical. The next minute Mike was bathing his brows,
throwing up the water with both hands; and as he felt the refreshing
coolness send an invigorating and calming thrill through every nerve, he
rose up and stood drying himself and gazing round, wondering whether he
was yet awake, or this was part of some strange, wild dream.
Vince did not speak, but stood there watching him, while the boat glided
on, as it had all through the night, with unerring regularity; and there
before them was the great watery oval they had gone on traversing,
dotted with sea-birds, while now, instead of the mighty cliffs around,
looking black, overhanging and forbidding, they were beautiful in the
extreme, both in the morning light and their deep empurpled shades.
Mike looked and looked up at the highest cliffs on his left, over the
rapidly gliding water to his right, where the great ridge was dotted
with sea-birds, and away to fore and aft, where the lofty overhanging
rocks were repeated.
"I say," cried Mike at last, "am I awake?"
"If you're not, I'm fast asleep," said Vince.
"But how did we get here?"
"I don't know. Through some narrow passage, I suppose; and then, as
soon as we got in, we must have been going on round and round, and round
and round, thinking that we were getting out to sea. I say, no wonder
it seemed so far!"
"Then it is true," said Mike excitedly. "I don't know that cave,
though."
"No, we never saw that before," said Vince, as they were swept by a low
archway, and then onward by a broad opening, which, seen from their
fresh point of view, looked beautiful but strange.
"Is that--" began Mike, in a dubious, hesitating way.
"Yes, of course. Look: we don't know it from out here, but there's the
seal hole and our fishing place, where we caught the crab. It's all
shadowy inside, or we could see our kitchen and fishing tackle."
"No, no; it can't be," said Mike despairingly: "if it was, we should
come directly upon the smugglers' place."
"Yes, you'll see: we shall be carried by directly."
"But there'll be some one there. Here, quick: let's row away,"--and
Mike seized an oar.
"You can't row against a current like this," said Vince quietly; "and if
anybody had been in there they would have been awake and seen us long
before this."
"Then I don't believe this is the cove, and that can't be our cavern,"
cried Mike sharply.
"Very well; but you soon will. Now look: here we go. I say, how smooth
the walls of rock are worn by the water!--that accounts for our never
having been upset in the night. We shall see the big cave directly.
Shall we try and land?"
"Yes; no; I don't know what will be best to do. Yes; but let's make
sure first."
"And land when we come round again?" said Vince.
"Yes, if you like. I don't know what to say."
"Seems best way," said Vince thoughtfully. "And yet I don't know. We
might hide, for they've blocked up the passage; but they'd hunt us out,
as we couldn't keep hidden very long. And they'd know we were there,
because they'd find the boat."
"Perhaps they'd think we were drowned," said Mike; and then, excitedly,
"Why, it is the big cavern, Cinder!"
"Yes, it's the big cavern, sure enough; and if it wasn't so dark inside
we could see the stack of kegs."
There was no room for further doubt, as they glided by the mouth of the
great opening, with its wonderful beach of soft sand, and directly after
began to recognise the piled-up masses of rock. As they went on, they
saw the outlying masses round which the waters foamed and bubbled, but
became quite bewildered as they tried to make out which was the outlet
by which the smuggler crew had taken them and the captain through on the
previous day. They passed narrow rifts, but the water always seemed to
be flowing swiftly into the great basin in which they were and joining
the seething waters in their continuous round.
Vince pointed to this and then to that gap between the rocks, as the one
through which they must have come overnight, but he could never be in
the least sure; and as they went on, he had to content himself with
looking up at the ridge which faced the caverns, and beyond which they
believed the sea to be.
Everywhere at the foot of the cliffs the water was deep, and so clear
that they could see the rocks at the bottom, smooth, and
treacherous-looking, apparently rising up to capsize the boat; but they
glided over all in safety, the great basin being worn smooth by the
constant friction of the currents, and at last began to approach the end
opposite to where they had been deftly taken out by the men.
Here they looked eagerly for another way of getting out--the rift
through which the waters must pass back into the sea--but, if it
existed, it was shut from their sight by the heaped-up rocks, and the
current carried them on and on with unchecked speed.
"No wonder I thought we were a long while getting out to sea!" said
Vince at last: "we can't have gone near the big channel through which
the lugger must come and go."
"Never mind that," said Mike impatiently; "there must be another way out
from this basin. We saw signs of it from up above, when you sat up
there and I held the rope."
"Yes," said Vince gloomily; "but sitting up there's one thing, and
sitting down here's another. Think we shall find another way out this
end? Must, mustn't we?"
Mike nodded as he stood up and searched the rocks for the opening that
was hidden from their eyes, from the fact that it was behind one of the
barriers of rock and far below the surface current which swept them
along.
As far as they could judge, they were going on for half an hour, making
the complete circuit of the great watery amphitheatre; and then, as they
passed the caverns again, they determined to examine the other end more
carefully, for the exit used by the smugglers, which must, they knew, be
ample and easy if they could master the knack of getting the boat in.
For they had some hazy notion of learning how it was done and then
hiding till night, when they might manage perhaps to pass out unseen.
"But if we did," said Mike despondently, "we should perhaps be swept in
here again, or be upset and drowned. I say, Cinder, did you ever see
such an unlucky pair as we are?"
"Never looked," said Vince; "but I tell you what: we shall have to land
in the big cave, and get through to ours."
"What for?"
"Breakfast. There's all our food, if they haven't found it."
"Could you eat now?" said Mike, with a look of horror.
"Eat? I could almost eat you," replied Vince.
"Ugh!" said Mike, with a shudder. "I feel so faint and sick and sinking
inside, I couldn't touch anything."
"Shouldn't like to trust you," said Vince, whom the bright sunshine and
the beauty of the place were influencing in his spirits. "But now,
then, let's have a good look this time."
They were going round swiftly enough, and noted the entrance to the
first low, arched cavern, which was some forty or fifty yards to the
westward of the seal hole; then they glided by the others in turn, and
tried hard to make out how the men had managed to thrust the big boat
through the running waters beyond that great beach and into the eddy
which bore them in the other direction.
"Do you see?" asked Mike.
"No, not yet; but perhaps I shall when we come round again. But, I say,
we can't keep on sailing round like this. We must land."
"But Jacques and his men, they won't be gone till to-night. You heard
what was said by old Joe?"
"Don't mention his name," cried Vince passionately. "I should like to
see the old wretch flogged."
"I should like to do it," said Mike grimly. "They'll come back and find
us here, for certain, if we don't hide," said Vince; "but I don't know
that I shall much mind now, for I'm afraid we shan't get away."
They glided round again, and in passing the spot where they believed the
exit to be, Vince fancied he detected an eddy among some rocks, but he
could not be sure; and at last they were once more approaching the
cavern, with its low arch, when Vince, who was watching the far end and
trying to fit together the means for getting away, suddenly snatched up
the boat-hook, thrust it out, and, leaning over the stern, caught hold
of a projecting rock, some two feet above the water. Then hauling hard,
hand over hand along the ash pole, he checked the progress of the boat
and drew it close in. Next, quick as lightning, he made another dash
with the hook and caught at another projection, missed, and, as the boat
was gliding back again, made another--a frantic--dash, and caught the
hook in a rift, while Mike thrust out an oar against a rock to help.
This time he drew the boat right up to the mouth of the new cavern, and
whispered sharply to his companion:
"Now--quick! help me run her in. Mind! duck down!"
Mike obeyed, and the boat glided in under the low arch, which just
cleared their heads as they sat in the bottom of the boat, and passed on
out of the bright sunshine into the chill darkness of the cave.
"Think they saw us?" whispered Vince.
"They? Saw us?"
"Didn't you see them coming through among the rocks quite quickly?"
"No: did you?"
"Just the tops of their caps: they were behind one of those low rocks
where the water rushes round."
"Are you sure, Vince?"
"Sure?--yes. Ah, mind! that oar!" cried the boy.
He crept past Mike, after seizing the boat-hook, and, reaching over the
stern, made a dash at the oar his companion had been using to thrust
with against the rocks, and which had been laid-down when they passed
right in, so that Mike could use his hands.
How it had slipped over the gunwale neither could have said; but when
Vince caught sight of it, the oar was floating just in the entrance, and
the sharp dash he made at it resulted in the hook striking the blade so
awkwardly that he drove it farther out, where it was caught by the
current and drawn swiftly away.
"Gone!" said Mike despairingly.
"Gone! Yes, of course it's gone; and now they'll find out where we
are."
"No, they're not obliged to," said Mike; "that oar may have been washed
from anywhere, and they haven't found it yet."
"Oh no," said Vince bitterly--"not yet; but you'll see."
Mike made no reply, but helped, without a word of objection, to thrust
the boat farther in along the passage, which greatly resembled the seal
hole, as they called it, but was nearly double the width, and afforded
plenty of room for the boat.
As soon as they felt that they were far enough in to be hidden by the
darkness, they sat watching the entrance, through which the bright
morning light poured, and listened intently for some sound to indicate
that the smugglers' boat was near.
But an hour must have passed, and Vince was fidgeting at something which
took his attention, when Mike suddenly whispered,--
"I say, do you notice anything strange about the way in yonder?"
Vince was silent.
"Why don't you speak?" said Mike sharply. "You have seen it. Why
didn't you speak before?"
"Felt as if I couldn't," said Vince hoarsely.
"Then it is so," said Mike. "The tide is rising, and the hole's getting
smaller. Come on: we must get out at once."
"Too late," replied Vince gloomily. "The water's too high now. If we
tried we should be wedged in."
"But--oh! we must try, Vince, or we shall be drowned! Why didn't you
speak before?"
"I wasn't sure till it began to run up so quickly; and what could we do?
If we had gone out we should have been seen directly. Perhaps it won't
rise any higher now. It never covered the seal cave."
"That was twice as high," groaned Mike. "Look at the limpets and
mussels on the roof: this must be shut right in at every tide."