"Oh, if it was only light!" groaned Mike.

"Yes, we could use the oars or hook to fend her off."

b.u.mp went the boat again, and they caught at the side to save themselves, conscious now, in the thick darkness, that they were being whirled round and round in some great whirlpool-like eddy, which dealt with the boat as if it were a cork.

"Don't seem as if we can do anything," said Vince at last, as the boat swept along, with the water lapping and gurgling about them just as if it were full of hungry tongues antic.i.p.ating the feast to come as soon as they were sucked down.

"No," said Mike, "it doesn't seem as if we can do anything."

"'Cept one thing, Mike," said Vince in a low deep tone, which did not sound like his own voice.

"What?"

"Say our prayers--for the last time."

And in the midst of that intense darkness, black as ebony on either side, while above and below there were still the bright glittering and softened streaks of light, there was an interval of solemn silence.

Vince was the first to break that silence, and there was something quite cheerful in his tones now as he said,--

"Shake hands, Mikey: I'm sorry you and I haven't always been good friends. I have often been a regular beast to you."

Mike grasped the extended hands in a firm grip with both of his, as he said, in a choking voice,--

"Not half so bad as I've been to you, Cinder. I've got such a hasty temper sometimes."

"Get out!" cried Vince sharply. "There, I'm better now. I'm afraid we're going to be drowned, Ladle, but I feel as if we ought to be doing something to try and save ourselves. It's being so cowardly to sit still here. They wouldn't like it at home."

"But what can we do? I'm ready."

"So am I; but it's so dark. I say, though, we must be going round and round in a sort of hole."

"Then we shall be drawn right down somewhere into the earth."

"Not that! I tell you what, it's like one of those great pot-holes in the big pa.s.sage, only a hundred times as big; and the water's sweeping the boulders round, and grinding it out and carrying us along with it.

Look here, we shall be kept on going round and round here, if we don't get smashed, till daylight; and then old Jarks'll come and find us, and we shall be worse off than ever. I say, though, don't you think we could do something with the boat-hook?"

"What?"

"Wait till we b.u.mp against the rocks again, and then try and hold on."

"If you did the water would come over the stern."

"I don't know. Well, look here: I'll try. If it does I'll let go directly."

Taking hold of the boat-hook Vince knelt down right forward, thrust the iron-armed pole over the bows, and holding it like a lance in rest he waited, but not for long. Very soon after the iron point touched against stone, and he was thrown backward, nearly losing the pole, while the boat was sent surging along on one side for a few moments, b.u.mped on the other side, then back again as if she were being sent from side to side, and directly after the keel came upon a rock which seemed to slope up like a great boulder standing in their way. There for a brief moment or two it was balanced, and made a plunge forward like a dive, the water came with a rush over the bows, and surged back to where Mike was kneeling, and then they were rushing onward again more swiftly than ever.

For a few moments the pair were too breathless to speak, but Vince recovered from the confusion caused by the shock and the rapidly following exciting incidents, and he shouted aloud,--

"Bale, Mike, bale! It's all right: we're out of that whirlpool, and we're going along again."

"You've got the baler forward," said Mike huskily.

"Eh? So I have in the locker here. I say, how deep do you make the water? There's hardly any here."

"Only a few inches."

"Then we're all right yet; but we may as well have that out."

He felt for the locker, and drew out the old tin pot, crept aft to where his companion knelt, and, after lifting the board which covered in the keel depression, he began to toss out the water rapidly, and soon lowered it so that the pot began to sc.r.a.pe on the bottom, while Mike listened with a feeling of envy attacking him, for he felt that it must be a relief to be doing something instead of kneeling there listening and wondering whether the pursuing boat was anywhere near.

"There!" said Vince at last, in a triumphant tone; "that's different to baling when you feel that the water is coming in as fast as you throw it out. I haven't got it all, but as much as I can without making a noise."

He replaced the bottom board and then returned the pot to the locker, and Mike moved a little forward now to meet him half-way.

"Think we're going as fast now as ever?" whispered Mike.

"Eh? I don't know. I was too busy to think about it. No, not quite, and--I say, are we going right?"

"Right?"

"Well, I mean as we were. We seemed to be going south, as far as I could make out by the stars; and now we're going north."

"Nonsense! impossible!"

"Look, then! I'm sure we had our backs to the pole star, and that meant going south, and out to sea; but now we've got our faces due north."

"Yes," said Mike, after a few moments' pause; "that's right: we're going north."

"Well, that isn't out to sea."

"No," replied Mike thoughtfully.

"And running along at such a rate as we are, we ought to have been ever so far away by this time, instead of rushing along here deep down among the rocks, as if we were in a narrow channel. I can't make it out: can you?"

Mike remained thoughtful and silent again for a time, and then said wearily,--

"No; I can't understand it. It gives me the headache to think; and being whirled along like this is so confusing. My thoughts go rushing along like the water."

"Don't talk so loud, Mike," said Vince, after a pause, "or we shall be heard. But we must have left them a long way behind, or else they've covered over their lanthorn so as to come upon us by surprise."

"Think they are near us, then?"

"Must be, because the tide would carry them along as fast as it does us; and they have the advantage of knowing the way. Oh! I do wish we could get out in the open sea; and then, once we were clear of the rocks, we'd show them what the boat could do. It would puzzle them to--"

He was going to say "catch us then," but he stopped short, gazing upward, out of the black chasm in which they were, at the stars.

"What is it? See the light?" whispered Mike.