"But up the cliff: you don't think there's anything there that makes it so that you can't go? I mean--"

"Dragons like father has in that old Latin book about Switzerland?"

"Yes; you've got pictures of them,--horrid things with wings, that lived in the mountains and pa.s.ses."

"All gammon!" cried Vince. "People used to believe in all kinds of nonsense--magicians, and fiery serpents and dragons, and things that we laugh about now. There, one can't help feeling a bit shrinky, after all we've heard and been frightened with by people ever since we were little bits of chaps; but I mean to go. There's nothing worse about the Scraw than there is about other dangerous places."

"Ah! you say so now because it's broad daylight and the sun shines, but you'd talk differently if it was dark as pitch."

"Shouldn't go if it was dark as pitch, because we shouldn't know where we were going. I say, you're not going to turn tail?"

"No," said Mike, "I'll go with you; but one can't help feeling a bit shrinky. I'm ready: come on."

"Let's seem as if we were not going, then," said Vince.

"We shan't see anybody if we go round by the Dolmen," said Mike. "There isn't a cottage after you pa.s.s the one on the Crusy common."

"And n.o.body lives in that now."

"Why?" said Mike quickly. "Think they saw anything? It's nearest to the Scraw Cliff."

"See anything? No. But they used to feel--the wind. Why, it's the highest part of Crag Island! Come along."

"One minute," said Mike. "You said you thought old Joe didn't want us to go there."

"Yes," said Vince.

"Well, wasn't it because in his rough, surly way he likes us, and didn't want us to get hurt?"

"Perhaps!" said Vince laconically.

"Well, there couldn't be any other reason."

"Yes, there could. It might be a splendid place for fishing, and for ormers and queens and oysters, and he don't want any one else to find it out."

"Yes, it might be that," said Mike; and he set his teeth and looked as if he were going upon some desperate venture from which he might never return alive.

Vince looked a little uneasy too, but there was determination plainly written on his countenance as the two lads, after a glance round to see if they were observed, made off together; over the stony cliff.

CHAPTER FIVE.

WHILE THE RAVEN CROAKED.

It was getting well on in the afternoon, but they had hours of daylight before them for their task. To reach the spot would have been a trifle if they had possessed the wings of the grey gull which floated softly overhead as if watching them. A few minutes would have sufficed; for, as the boys had often laughingly said when at home in the centre of the island, where Sir Francis Ladelle's sheltered manor-house stood, near the Doctor's long granite cottage among the scattered dwellings of the fisher-farmers of the place, they could not have walked two miles in any direction without tumbling into the sea. But to reach the mighty cliffs overhanging the Scraw was not an easy task.

The way they chose was along the eastern side of the island, close to the sea, where from north point to south point the place was inaccessible, there being only three places practicable for a landing, and these lying on the west and south. There the mighty storm-waves had battered the granite crags for centuries, undermining them in soft veins till huge ma.s.ses had fallen again and again, making openings which had been enlarged till there was one long cove; the fissure where they had taken boat with old Daygo; and another spot farther to the south.

The lads had not gone far before they curved suddenly to their left, and struggled through one of the patches of woodland that beautified the island. This was of oak trees and ilex, dwarfed by their position, tortured into every form of gnarled elbow and crookedness by the sea wind, and seldom visited save by the boys, who knew it as a famous spot for rabbits.

It was hard work getting through this dwarf-oak scrub, but they struggled on, descending now into a steep ravine quite in the uninhabited part of the island, and feeling that they might talk and shout as they pleased--for they were not likely to be heard. But they were very quiet, and when hawk or magpie was started, or an old nest seen, they instinctively called each other's attention to it in a whisper.

After a time they were clear of the sombre wood, and had to commence another fight in the hollow of the slope they had to climb, for here the brambles and furze grew in their greatest luxuriance, and had woven so st.u.r.dy a hedge that it was next to impossible to get through.

Perseverance, and a brave indifference to thorns, carried them along; and at the end of half an hour they were at the bottom of a gigantic precipice of tumbled-together ma.s.ses of granite, suggesting that they were at the beginning of the huge promontory which jutted out into the sea, and round which Daygo had refused to take them; the beautiful little rounded bay which they had skirted being to their right; and forward toward the north, and lying away to their left, being the situation of the unknown region always spoken of with bated breath, and called The Scraw.

The lads stopped now, hot, panting and scratched, to stand gazing upward.

"Tired?" said Mike.

"Yes. No," replied Vince. "Come on."

But Mike did not move. He stood looking before him at the rugged ma.s.ses of granite, grey with lichen and surrounded by brambles, reaching up and up like a gigantic sloping wall that had fallen in ruins.

Vince had begun to climb, and had mounted a few feet, but not hearing his companion following, he turned back to look.

"Why don't you come on?" he cried.

"I was thinking that we can never get up there."

"Not if you stand still at the bottom," said Vince, laughing; and his cheery way acted upon Mike's spirits directly, for he began to follow.

It was strange, though, that the laugh which had raised the spirits of one depressed those of the other; for Vince felt as if it was wrong to laugh there in that wild solitude, and he started violently as something rushed from beneath his feet and bounded off to their right.

"Only a rabbit," said Mike, recovering from his own start. "But I say, Cinder, I never thought that there could be such a wild place as this in the island. Oh! what's that?"

They were climbing slowly towards a tall ragged pinnacle of granite, which rose up some ten or fifteen feet by itself, when all at once a great black bird hopped into sight, looking gigantic against the sky, gazed down in a one-sided way, and began to utter a series of hoa.r.s.e croaks, which sounded like the barkings of a dog.

"Only a raven," said Vince quickly. "Why, I say, Mike, this must be where that pair we have seen build every year! We must find the nest, and get a young one or two to bring up."

"Doesn't look as if he'd let us," said Mike, peering round with his eyes for a stone that he could pick up and hurl at the bird. But, though stone was in plenty, it was in ma.s.ses that might be calculated by hundredweights and tons.

They climbed on slowly, one helping the other over the hardest bits; the faults and rifts between the blocks of granite, which in places were as regular as if they had been built up, afforded them foothold; but their way took them to the left, by the raven, which gave another bark or two, hopped from the stony pinnacle upon which it had remained perched, spread its wings, and, after a few flaps to right and then to left, rose to the broken ridge above their heads, hovered for a moment, and then, half closing its wings, dived down out of sight.

"Pretty close to the top," cried Vince breathlessly; and he paused to wipe his streaming face before making a fresh start, bearing more and more to the left, and finding how solitary a spot they had reached--one so wild that it seemed as if it had never been trodden by the foot of man.

They both paused again when not many feet from the summit of the slope, their climb having been made so much longer by its laborious nature; and as they stopped, the action of both was the same: they gazed about them nervously, startled by the utter loneliness and desolation of the spot, which might have been far away in some Eastern desert, instead of close to the cliffs and commons about which they had played for years.

Granite blocks and boulders everywhere, save that in places there was a patch of white heather, ling, or golden starry ragwort; and in spite of their determination the desire was strong upon them to turn and hurry back. But for either to have proposed this would have been equivalent to showing the white feather; and for fear that Vince should for a moment fancy that he was ready to shirk the task, Mike said roughly, "Come on," and continued the climbing, reaching the top first, and stretching out his hand, which was grasped by Vince, who pulled himself up and sank down by his companion's side to gaze in wonder from the rugged ridge they had won.

It was not like the edge of a cliff, but a thorough ridge, steep as the roof of an old-fashioned house, down to where, some fifty feet below them, the slope ended and the precipice began.

It was rugged enough, but as far as they could see to right or left there was no way out: they were hemmed in by huge weathered blocks of granite and the sea. There was the way back, of course; but the desire upon both now was to go forward, for the curiosity which had been growing fast ever since they started was now culminating, and they were eager to penetrate the mystery of the place.

"What are we going to do next?" said Mike. "See if we can't get down to the sh.o.r.e, of course;" and Vince seated himself between two rugged, tempest-worn points of rock, and had a long, searching look beyond the edge of the precipice below him.

First he swept the high barrier of detached rock which stretched before him two hundred yards or so distant, and apparently shutting in a nearly circular pool; for he and his companion were at the head of a deep indentation, the stern granite cliffs curving out to right and left, and seeming to touch the rocky barrier, which swarmed with birds on every shelf and ledge, large patches looking perfectly white.

"Seems like a lake," said Mike suddenly, just as Vince was thinking the same thing.