"What was it?" cried Mike excitedly: "something get hold of your leg?"

"No," replied the boy, with a shiver, as his face turned clayey-looking.

"Yes."

"What was it--crab or a conger?"

"Something ever so much worse," said Vince, with a shiver. "It looks quite hard down there, and all as tempting as can be; but it's loose quicksand, and my foot went down into it just as if it was so much sticky oil. There's no getting along there."

"Lucky you hadn't let go," said Mike sympathetically. "Good job we found out as we have. It might have been much worse."

"Worse? Why, I nearly went right in. And then I should have been sucked down. Ugh!"

Vince shuddered; but the colour began to come naturally again into his cheeks, and after a bit he laughed as they waded back into the cavern-- being particularly careful, though, in spite of the roughness, to plant their feet on the pieces of sh.e.l.l-dotted stone beneath the surface.

"Yes, it's all very well to laugh," said Mike, in an ill-used tone; "but you're always running risks and getting into some hobble."

"Not such a good little boy as you, Ladle. You never do wrong, and-- There, see what you've done now!" cried Vince, as he stood now in the soft, dry sand, and nestled his feet in it to take the place of a towel.

"What have I done now?"

"Come down and left the candle burning. I know you did; and it will have burned into the socket and melted it. How will you like going back in the dark?"

Mike stared at him aghast.

"You did forget, now, didn't you?"

"You never told me to put it out."

"I didn't tell you to eat your dinner to-day, did I?"

"No; but--"

"Where's your common sense? Now we shall have to go all through that dark hole like a couple of worms."

"No, we shan't," cried Mike. "I've got common sense enough to know you said you had some bits of candle in your pocket."

"Humph!" grunted Vince, whose eyes were wandering in all directions about the beautiful cave. "What's the good of candles without something to stick them in? That socket's melted off, I know."

"Soon manage that," said Mike, picking up a large whorled sh.e.l.l.

"There's a natural candlestick; and if we hadn't found that, our fists would have done, or we could have stuck the candle on to the lanthorn with some of the grease."

"My word, he is a clever old Ladle!" cried Vince jeeringly. "I say, isn't this dry sand jolly for your legs? Mine are as right as can be."

"Capital," said Mike, who was pulling on his grey knitted socks. "I say, though, we have found out a place. I vote we come often."

"Yes," said Vince. "After a bit we shall be able to step through that dark hole as easily as can be."

"Yes, and in half the time. It's all very well to bounce, but it was queer work coming down."

"I don't bounce, Ladle; I felt squirmy enough. Of course you couldn't help feeling creepy when you didn't know where you were going next."

"Well, I daresay you felt so too."

"Of course I did," continued Vince. "I expected to put my foot in a great crack every minute, and fall right through to Botany Bay."

"Yes," said Mike seriously. "There's something about being in the dark that is queer."

"Till you get used to it," said Vince, jumping up, with his boots laced.

"Now, then, look sharp. I want to have another good look round."

"Ready," said Mike. "I say, let's make a fireplace here, and bring wood, and get a frying-pan and a kettle, and cook fish and make tea and enjoy ourselves."

Vince nodded a.s.sent.

"Yes," he said; "might sleep here if you came to that. Sand would make a jolly bed and bed-clothes too. I say, we've found a place that some boys would give their heads to have. Why, there's no end to the fun we can have here. We can fish from the mouth."

"Yes, and I found some oysters--put my foot on them."

"And we can bring things by degrees: potatoes and apples and flour.

Why, Ladle, old chap, we can beat old Robinson Crusoe all to nothing, and smugglers and robbers and those sort of people. But we must keep it a secret. If any one else knew of this place being here it would be spoiled at once. I say, what's that?"

"What?" said Mike.

"That dark bit there?" and Vince nodded to a spot in the gloomiest part of the cavern, right up in one corner, where the roof rose highest.

"Crack in the rock. There's another just beyond."

"Yes, a regular split. Hope it don't mean that the roofs going to tumble in."

"Not just yet," said Mike, gazing up curiously at the fault in the granite stratum. "We might try where it goes to."

"Want a ladder," said Vince; "and you may carry it, for I'm not going to try and bring that sort of thing down here. I say, there's the place to make a fire, just by the mouth, and then the smoke will all go up outside; and we can wash our fish and keep the place clean. Those pools will be splendid. There's one deep enough to bathe in."

"There, I tell you what," said Mike; "we've got about as splendid a place close to home as any fellows could find if they went all over the world. I say, though, how we could laugh at old Joe if we brought him down and showed him the Scraw has about as beautiful a cave as there is anywhere!"

"I say, don't talk about it. I wouldn't have any one know for the world; and do be careful about smuggling things down here."

"Don't you be afraid of that," said Mike. "Hi, look! There's a shoal of fish out there. Mackerel, I think."

"Oh, the place teems with fish, I'm sure," said Vince, as he watched the shimmering of the surface just in a smooth patch beyond where the sea was troubled. "Now, then, shall we go and look at the other place before we go back?"

"Yes," said Mike, but his tone suggesting no. "I feel as if I could sit down in the sand and look out at the sea and the birds on the rocks there opposite for ever."

"Without getting hungry, I suppose," said Vince. "Come on. It won't be long before we come down again. I say, Ladle, what a place to come to on wet days!"

"Splendid; and I shan't be satisfied till you and I have sailed round here to see if there isn't a way of getting into the bay with a boat."

"We might; but I daresay there isn't. Very likely it's such a race and so full of rocks that we should be upset directly. Come on."