Then they relapsed into silence, both watching the stars to convince themselves that they were going round and round, making the circuit of some wide place surrounded by the towering rocks, which made the sea look so intensely black.

At last, thoroughly convinced, the strain of thinking became too great, the motion of the boat and the constant gliding along in that horrible monotonous whirl began to affect Mike as it had affected Vince, and, in spite of his energetic struggles to rouse himself from it, was now attacking him more strongly than ever. They were surrounded by dangers, the least of which was that of the pursuing boat with the exasperated captain; for so surely as the boat grazed upon a rock just below the surface she would capsize. But all this was as nothing to the mentally and bodily exhausted lads. Nature was all-powerful, and by degrees the head of first one then of the other drooped, and sleep, deep and sudden, fell upon them.

But the sleep was not then profound. The mind still acted like the flickering of a candle in its socket, and urged them to start up wakeful and determined once more. And this happened again and again, the sufferers telling themselves that it would be madness to go to sleep.

But, madness or no, Nature said they must; and almost simultaneously, after seating themselves in the bottom of the boat, so as to prop themselves in the corners between the thwart and side, they glided lower and lower, and at last lay p.r.o.ne in the most profound of slumber, totally unconscious of everything but the great need which would renew with fresh vigour their exhausted frames.

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

A STRANGE AWAKENING.

The grey gulls were wheeling round and round, dipping down from time to time to pick up some sc.r.a.p of floating food or tiny fish from out of a shoal; the cormorants and s.h.a.gs were swimming here and there, and diving down swift as the fish themselves, in chase of victim after victim for their ravenous maws, and the fish, crowded together, were playing about the surface, and leaping out at times like bars of silver, to fall back again with a splash, while the sun made the water sparkle as it rippled and played and foamed among the rocks.

It was a glorious morning; and the heather, gorse and purple-hued lavender blossomed, sea-pinks glistened and flashed, as the sun played and sent off rays of dazzling iridescent hues from the evanescent gems with which the night mists had bedewed them.

Everywhere all was life and light, save where a boat went gliding along upon a swift current stem first, stern first, or broadside on, as the various curves and jutting rocks at the foot of the huge cliffs affected the hurrying waters and made them react upon the boat.

All at once there was a desperate quarrel and screaming for as a diver rose from its plunge, and was flying towards one of the cliff shelves to enjoy its morning meal in the shape of a large, newly caught fish, it was attacked by a huge pirate of a black-backed gull, which pounced down upon it with open beak, secured the fish, and as it flew off was followed and mobbed by a score of other birds, when such a wild clamour of sharp metallic screams arose, that it startled one of the occupants of the boat, making him spring up, rub his eyes, stare, and then bend down to rouse his companion.

"Here! Hi! Mike! Ladle! Wake up!"

The other obeyed, sprang to his feet, and stared wildly at his companion, with that dull, heavy, dreamy look in the eyes, which tells that though the muscular energy of the body may be awake, the mind is still fast plunged in sleep.

Then both rubbed their eyes, and Vince did more: he knelt down, leaned over the side of the boat, and plunging both hands in, scooped up the cool sparkling water, and bathed face and temples till his brain grew clearer, and he stood up again, dabbing his face with his handkerchief.

"Do as I do. Do you hear, Mike? I say, you're asleep!"

"Sleep?" said Mike, looking at him vacantly.

"Yes, asleep. Rouse up and look! It's wonderful! Here, if you won't, I must. Kneel down."

He pressed upon the boy's shoulders; and Mike, without making the slightest resistance, knelt in the bottom of the boat. He yielded too as Vince pressed a hand upon the back of his head, and then splashed some water in his face.

The effect was electrical. The next minute Mike was bathing his brows, throwing up the water with both hands; and as he felt the refreshing coolness send an invigorating and calming thrill through every nerve, he rose up and stood drying himself and gazing round, wondering whether he was yet awake, or this was part of some strange, wild dream.

Vince did not speak, but stood there watching him, while the boat glided on, as it had all through the night, with unerring regularity; and there before them was the great watery oval they had gone on traversing, dotted with sea-birds, while now, instead of the mighty cliffs around, looking black, overhanging and forbidding, they were beautiful in the extreme, both in the morning light and their deep empurpled shades.

Mike looked and looked up at the highest cliffs on his left, over the rapidly gliding water to his right, where the great ridge was dotted with sea-birds, and away to fore and aft, where the lofty overhanging rocks were repeated.

"I say," cried Mike at last, "am I awake?"

"If you're not, I'm fast asleep," said Vince.

"But how did we get here?"

"I don't know. Through some narrow pa.s.sage, I suppose; and then, as soon as we got in, we must have been going on round and round, and round and round, thinking that we were getting out to sea. I say, no wonder it seemed so far!"

"Then it is true," said Mike excitedly. "I don't know that cave, though."

"No, we never saw that before," said Vince, as they were swept by a low archway, and then onward by a broad opening, which, seen from their fresh point of view, looked beautiful but strange.

"Is that--" began Mike, in a dubious, hesitating way.

"Yes, of course. Look: we don't know it from out here, but there's the seal hole and our fishing place, where we caught the crab. It's all shadowy inside, or we could see our kitchen and fishing tackle."

"No, no; it can't be," said Mike despairingly: "if it was, we should come directly upon the smugglers' place."

"Yes, you'll see: we shall be carried by directly."

"But there'll be some one there. Here, quick: let's row away,"--and Mike seized an oar.

"You can't row against a current like this," said Vince quietly; "and if anybody had been in there they would have been awake and seen us long before this."

"Then I don't believe this is the cove, and that can't be our cavern,"

cried Mike sharply.

"Very well; but you soon will. Now look: here we go. I say, how smooth the walls of rock are worn by the water!--that accounts for our never having been upset in the night. We shall see the big cave directly.

Shall we try and land?"

"Yes; no; I don't know what will be best to do. Yes; but let's make sure first."

"And land when we come round again?" said Vince.

"Yes, if you like. I don't know what to say."

"Seems best way," said Vince thoughtfully. "And yet I don't know. We might hide, for they've blocked up the pa.s.sage; but they'd hunt us out, as we couldn't keep hidden very long. And they'd know we were there, because they'd find the boat."

"Perhaps they'd think we were drowned," said Mike; and then, excitedly, "Why, it is the big cavern, Cinder!"

"Yes, it's the big cavern, sure enough; and if it wasn't so dark inside we could see the stack of kegs."

There was no room for further doubt, as they glided by the mouth of the great opening, with its wonderful beach of soft sand, and directly after began to recognise the piled-up ma.s.ses of rock. As they went on, they saw the outlying ma.s.ses round which the waters foamed and bubbled, but became quite bewildered as they tried to make out which was the outlet by which the smuggler crew had taken them and the captain through on the previous day. They pa.s.sed narrow rifts, but the water always seemed to be flowing swiftly into the great basin in which they were and joining the seething waters in their continuous round.

Vince pointed to this and then to that gap between the rocks, as the one through which they must have come overnight, but he could never be in the least sure; and as they went on, he had to content himself with looking up at the ridge which faced the caverns, and beyond which they believed the sea to be.

Everywhere at the foot of the cliffs the water was deep, and so clear that they could see the rocks at the bottom, smooth, and treacherous-looking, apparently rising up to capsize the boat; but they glided over all in safety, the great basin being worn smooth by the constant friction of the currents, and at last began to approach the end opposite to where they had been deftly taken out by the men.

Here they looked eagerly for another way of getting out--the rift through which the waters must pa.s.s back into the sea--but, if it existed, it was shut from their sight by the heaped-up rocks, and the current carried them on and on with unchecked speed.

"No wonder I thought we were a long while getting out to sea!" said Vince at last: "we can't have gone near the big channel through which the lugger must come and go."

"Never mind that," said Mike impatiently; "there must be another way out from this basin. We saw signs of it from up above, when you sat up there and I held the rope."

"Yes," said Vince gloomily; "but sitting up there's one thing, and sitting down here's another. Think we shall find another way out this end? Must, mustn't we?"

Mike nodded as he stood up and searched the rocks for the opening that was hidden from their eyes, from the fact that it was behind one of the barriers of rock and far below the surface current which swept them along.