"Eh? Where?" said Daygo quickly.

"Right away, miles off the North Point."

The old man took the gla.s.s, altered the focus again, and took a long, searching look.

"Bah!" he exclaimed; "that's not a Frenchman, my lads," and he closed the gla.s.s with a smart crack. "I say, lookye here."

He led the way to the door, grinning tremendously, and pointed in to where, hanging over the fireplace, was the piece of well-tarred rope, hanging by a loop made of fishing line.

"Ready when wanted--eh?"

The boys laughed and went off soon after towards home.

"Five shillings worse off," said Mike, when they parted for the night; "but I'm glad we got out of all that so easily.--I say, Cinder!"

"Well?"

"It would have been rather awkward if he'd taken it the other way and been in a rage."

"Very," said Vince, before whose eyes the two feet of rope seemed to loom out of the evening gloom.

"And it would have been all your fault."

"Yes," said Vince shortly. "Good-night: I want to get home."

They parted, and as he walked back Vince could not help thinking a good deal about the previous afternoon's experience, and he shook his head more than once before beginning to think of the cavern.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

FRESH PULLS FROM THE MAGNET.

A week elapsed; the weather had been stormy, and a western gale had brought the sea into a furious state, making the waves deluge the huge western cliffs, and sending the churned-up foam flying over the edge and inland like dingy b.a.l.l.s of snow.

And the boys were kept in by the gale?

Is it likely? The more fiercely the wind blew, the more heavily the huge Atlantic waves thundered against the cliffs and sent the spray flying up in showers, the more they were out on the cliffs searching the dimly seen horizon, watching to see if any ship was in danger.

But it was rare for a ship to be seen anywhere near Cormorant Crag when a sou'-wester blew. Its rocks and fierce currents were too well known to the hardy mariner, who shook his head and fought his way outward into deep water if he could not reach a port, sooner than be anywhere near that dangerous rock-strewn sh.o.r.e.

Vince and Mike had long known that when the wind was at its highest, and it was hard work to stand against it, there was little danger in being near the edge of some perpendicular precipice, and that there, with the rock-face fully exposed to the gale, and the huge waves rushing in to leap against the towering ma.s.ses with a noise like thunder, they could sit down in comparative shelter, and gaze with feelings akin to awe at the tumult below.

Why? For the simple reason that, after striking against a high, flat surface, the swift current of air must go somewhere. It cannot turn back and meet the winds following it, neither can it dive into the sea.

It can only go upward, and sweeps several feet beyond the edge of the cliff before it curves over and continues its furious journey over the land, leaving at the brink a spot that is undisturbed.

These places were favoured always by the boys, who would generally be the only living creatures visible, the birds having at the first breaking out of the storm hastened to shelter themselves on the other side of the island.

"Sea's pretty busy cave-making to-day," said Vince, on one of these stormy mornings. "I wonder what it's like in the cave in front of our place."

"All smooth, of course," said Mike. "It's on the other side, and it's shut-in, so I daresay it doesn't make a bit of difference there. I say, oughtn't we to go there again?"

"You want to open some of those packages," said Vince, as he reached his head a little way over the side of the cliff to gaze down at an enormous roller that came plunging through the outlying rocks a couple of hundred feet below. "Well, what of that?"

"Phew! My!" cried Vince, drawing back breathlessly and wiping the blinding spray from his face. "You can't do that, Ladle. I believe you might try to jump down there and find you couldn't. The wind would pitch you up again and throw you over into the fields."

"Shouldn't like to try it," said Mike drily. "But I say, why shouldn't I want to open the bales and kegs and see what's in them?"

"Because they belong to somebody else, as I told you before."

"If they belong to anybody at all they belong to my father, and he wouldn't mind my opening them."

"Don't know so much about that," said Vince stolidly. "I'll ask him."

"No, no; don't do that," cried Mike, in alarm; "you'll spoil all the fun."

"Very well, then: you ask him what he thinks, then we should know."

"There's plenty of time for that. I never did see such a fellow as you are, Cinder. What's the matter with you?"

"Wet," said Vince. "It was just as if some one with an enormous bucket had dashed water into my face."

"Then you shouldn't have looked over. You might have known how it would be. But look here: never mind the sea."

"But I do mind it. Hear that? Oh, what a tremendous thud that wave came with!"

"Well, of course it did."

"Wonder how many years it will be before the sea washes the Crag all away."

"What nonsense!"

"It isn't. I was talking to Mr Deane about it the other day, and he says it is only a question of time."

"What, before the Crag's washed away? I should think it would be. I'll tell you the proper answer to that--Never."

"Oh, indeed," said Vince: "then how about the caves in under here?

Haven't they all been hollowed out, and aren't they always getting bigger? That's how those on the other side must have been made. I shouldn't wonder if they are full of water now."

"What, with all those things in!" said Mike, in alarm. "Oh, I don't believe that. When shall we go and see?"

"It would be horrible to go across the common on a day like this, and we should be soaked getting through the ferns and brambles."

"Yes; it wouldn't be nice now. But will you come first fine afternoon?"

"Well, I don't know."

"Oh, I say," cried Mike reproachfully--"you are getting to be a fellow!