"Well, we shan't have him playing the spy to-day," said Vince, who was in capital spirits. "Now, if we could see old Lobster going too, we should be all right."

"I dare say his father's got him hoeing carrots or something. We shan't see him."

They did not see Jemmy Carnach's hopeful son, nor any other living being but a cow, which raised its soft eyes to gaze at them sadly, and remained looking after them till they plunged into the scrub-wood, and, once there, felt safe. Then, after their usual laborious work beneath the trees, they reached the granite wilderness, clambered in and out and over the great blocks, keeping an eye as much as they could on the ridge up to their right, in case of the Lobster being there, and finally reached the opening, jumped down through the brambles, and at once made for the spot where the lanthorn and tinder-box were stowed.

"I say, isn't it jolly?" cried Mike eagerly. "Just like old times, getting back here again. What a while it seems!"

"Yes, it does seem a good while," said Vince, beginning to strike a light. "I hope nothing has happened since we were here."

"Eh?" cried Mike excitedly. "What can have happened?"

"Sea washed the place out, and taken all our kitchen and parlour things away."

"Nonsense!" said Mike contemptuously. "Oh, it might, you know; there would have been no waves, but there might have been a high tide. There must have been tremendously high tides down there at one time, so as to have washed out those caves."

"Ah! it's a precious long time since they've been washed out, I know,"

said Mike, laughing. "They don't ever get swept out now."

"No, but they're kept neat, with sand on the floor," said Vince, snapping to the door of the lanthorn and holding it up for the soft yellow light to shine upon the granite walls. "I say, Mike, don't you think we're a pair of old stupids to make all this fuss over a hole in the ground?"

"No: why should we be?"

"Because it doesn't seem any good. Here we take all this trouble hiding away and going down the hole like worms, so as to crawl about there in the sand."

"And what about the beautiful caves, and the rocks where we sit and watch the sea-birds?"

"We could see them just as well off the cliffs."

"But the cove with the great walls of rock all round, and the current racing round like a whirlpool?"

"Plenty of currents and eddies anywhere off the coast."

"But the fishing?"

"We could fish in easier places," said Vince, talking loudly now they were well down in the pa.s.sage. "Why, we've had better luck everywhere than here."

"Oh, you are a discontented chap!" said Mike. "You ought to think yourself wonderfully well off, to be able to come down to such a place.

See what jolly feasts we've had down here all alone."

"Yes, but it seems to me sometimes like nonsense to be cooking potatoes and frying fish down in a cave, when we could sit comfortably at a table at your house or ours, and have no trouble at all."

"Well, you are a fellow!" cried Mike. "You said one day that the fish we cooked down there tasted twice as good as it did at home."

"Yes, I did one day when we hadn't got it smoky."

"We don't often get it smoky," protested Mike. "But I say, don't talk like that. You were as eager to make our little secret place there as I was. You don't mean to say you're getting tired of it?"

"I don't know," said Vince. "Yes, I do. No, I'm not getting tired of it yet, for it does seem very jolly, as you say, when we do get down here all alone, and feel as if we were thousands of miles from everywhere. But I shall get tired of it some day. I don't think it's half so good since we found the way into the other cave."

"I do," said Mike. "It's splendid to have made such a discovery, and to find that once upon a time there were pirates or smugglers here."

Meanwhile they were slowly descending the bed of the ancient underground rivulet, so familiar with every turn and hollow that they knew exactly where to place their feet when they reached the little falls, and never thinking of stopping to examine the pot-holes, where the great rounded boulders, that had turned and turned by the force of the falling water, still remained. Vince's light danced about in the darkness like a large glowworm, and Mike followed it, humming a tune, whistling, or making a few remarks from time to time; but he was very thoughtful all the same, as his mind dwelt upon the packages in the far cavern, and he felt the desire to examine them increase, till he was quite in a state of fever.

"Pretty close, aren't we?" said Mike at last, to break the silence of the gloomy tunnel.

"Yes, we shall be there in five minutes now. But, I say, suppose we find that some one has been since we were here?"

"Well, whoever it was, couldn't have taken the caves away."

"No; but if Lobster has found out the way down?--and I dare say he has, after tumbling into the front hall."

"'Tisn't the front hall," said Mike laughingly; "it's the back door.

Front hall's down by the sea, where the seal cave is."

"Have it which way you like," said Vince, giving the lanthorn a swing, "but it seems to me most like the back attic window. I say, though, if Lobster has found it out, he'll have devoured every sc.r.a.p we left there, and, I daresay, carried off the fishing tackle and pans."

"A thief! He'd better not," cried Mike.

"Ha--ha--ha!" laughed Vince. "I do call that good."

"What? I don't know what you mean."

"Your calling him a thief for taking away the things he discovered there."

"Well, so he would be. They're not his."

"No," said Vince, laughing; "and those things in the far cavern aren't ours, but you want to take them."

"That's different," said Mike hastily. "We only put our things there a few weeks ago; those bales and barrels have been there perhaps hundreds of years."

"Say thousands while you're about it, Ladle," cried Vince cheerily.

"Hold hard. _Puff_!"

The candle was blown out through a hole in the lanthorn, and the latter lowered down to the usual niche close to the cavern wall, where they were accustomed to keep it.

"Down with you!" cried Vince; and Mike required no second telling, but glided down the slope so sharply that he rolled over in the sand at the bottom.

"Below!" shouted Vince; and he charged down after him, sitting on his heels, and also having his upset. "I say, though, I hope no one has been."

They walked across the deep, yielding sand, with the soft pearly light playing on the ceiling; peered through into the outer cave; and then Mike, who was first, darted back, for there was a loud splash and the sound as of some one wallowing through the water at the cave mouth.

"Only a seal," cried Vince. "There goes another."

He ran forward over the sand in time to see a third pa.s.s out of a low, dark archway at the right of the place where the clear water was all in motion from the powerful creatures swimming through.

"I say, Mike, why don't we take the light some day and wade in there to see how far it goes?" said Vince, as he looked curiously at the doorway of what was evidently a regular seal's lurking-place.

"Because it's wet and dark; and how do we know that we could wade in there?"