As far as they could judge, they were going on for half an hour, making the complete circuit of the great watery amphitheatre; and then, as they pa.s.sed the caverns again, they determined to examine the other end more carefully, for the exit used by the smugglers, which must, they knew, be ample and easy if they could master the knack of getting the boat in.

For they had some hazy notion of learning how it was done and then hiding till night, when they might manage perhaps to pa.s.s out unseen.

"But if we did," said Mike despondently, "we should perhaps be swept in here again, or be upset and drowned. I say, Cinder, did you ever see such an unlucky pair as we are?"

"Never looked," said Vince; "but I tell you what: we shall have to land in the big cave, and get through to ours."

"What for?"

"Breakfast. There's all our food, if they haven't found it."

"Could you eat now?" said Mike, with a look of horror.

"Eat? I could almost eat you," replied Vince.

"Ugh!" said Mike, with a shudder. "I feel so faint and sick and sinking inside, I couldn't touch anything."

"Shouldn't like to trust you," said Vince, whom the bright sunshine and the beauty of the place were influencing in his spirits. "But now, then, let's have a good look this time."

They were going round swiftly enough, and noted the entrance to the first low, arched cavern, which was some forty or fifty yards to the westward of the seal hole; then they glided by the others in turn, and tried hard to make out how the men had managed to thrust the big boat through the running waters beyond that great beach and into the eddy which bore them in the other direction.

"Do you see?" asked Mike.

"No, not yet; but perhaps I shall when we come round again. But, I say, we can't keep on sailing round like this. We must land."

"But Jacques and his men, they won't be gone till to-night. You heard what was said by old Joe?"

"Don't mention his name," cried Vince pa.s.sionately. "I should like to see the old wretch flogged."

"I should like to do it," said Mike grimly. "They'll come back and find us here, for certain, if we don't hide," said Vince; "but I don't know that I shall much mind now, for I'm afraid we shan't get away."

They glided round again, and in pa.s.sing the spot where they believed the exit to be, Vince fancied he detected an eddy among some rocks, but he could not be sure; and at last they were once more approaching the cavern, with its low arch, when Vince, who was watching the far end and trying to fit together the means for getting away, suddenly s.n.a.t.c.hed up the boat-hook, thrust it out, and, leaning over the stern, caught hold of a projecting rock, some two feet above the water. Then hauling hard, hand over hand along the ash pole, he checked the progress of the boat and drew it close in. Next, quick as lightning, he made another dash with the hook and caught at another projection, missed, and, as the boat was gliding back again, made another--a frantic--dash, and caught the hook in a rift, while Mike thrust out an oar against a rock to help.

This time he drew the boat right up to the mouth of the new cavern, and whispered sharply to his companion:

"Now--quick! help me run her in. Mind! duck down!"

Mike obeyed, and the boat glided in under the low arch, which just cleared their heads as they sat in the bottom of the boat, and pa.s.sed on out of the bright sunshine into the chill darkness of the cave.

"Think they saw us?" whispered Vince.

"They? Saw us?"

"Didn't you see them coming through among the rocks quite quickly?"

"No: did you?"

"Just the tops of their caps: they were behind one of those low rocks where the water rushes round."

"Are you sure, Vince?"

"Sure?--yes. Ah, mind! that oar!" cried the boy.

He crept past Mike, after seizing the boat-hook, and, reaching over the stern, made a dash at the oar his companion had been using to thrust with against the rocks, and which had been laid-down when they pa.s.sed right in, so that Mike could use his hands.

How it had slipped over the gunwale neither could have said; but when Vince caught sight of it, the oar was floating just in the entrance, and the sharp dash he made at it resulted in the hook striking the blade so awkwardly that he drove it farther out, where it was caught by the current and drawn swiftly away.

"Gone!" said Mike despairingly.

"Gone! Yes, of course it's gone; and now they'll find out where we are."

"No, they're not obliged to," said Mike; "that oar may have been washed from anywhere, and they haven't found it yet."

"Oh no," said Vince bitterly--"not yet; but you'll see."

Mike made no reply, but helped, without a word of objection, to thrust the boat farther in along the pa.s.sage, which greatly resembled the seal hole, as they called it, but was nearly double the width, and afforded plenty of room for the boat.

As soon as they felt that they were far enough in to be hidden by the darkness, they sat watching the entrance, through which the bright morning light poured, and listened intently for some sound to indicate that the smugglers' boat was near.

But an hour must have pa.s.sed, and Vince was fidgeting at something which took his attention, when Mike suddenly whispered,--

"I say, do you notice anything strange about the way in yonder?"

Vince was silent.

"Why don't you speak?" said Mike sharply. "You have seen it. Why didn't you speak before?"

"Felt as if I couldn't," said Vince hoa.r.s.ely.

"Then it is so," said Mike. "The tide is rising, and the hole's getting smaller. Come on: we must get out at once."

"Too late," replied Vince gloomily. "The water's too high now. If we tried we should be wedged in."

"But--oh! we must try, Vince, or we shall be drowned! Why didn't you speak before?"

"I wasn't sure till it began to run up so quickly; and what could we do?

If we had gone out we should have been seen directly. Perhaps it won't rise any higher now. It never covered the seal cave."

"That was twice as high," groaned Mike. "Look at the limpets and mussels on the roof: this must be shut right in at every tide."

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.

RE-TRAPPED.

Misfortunes, they say, never come singly, and these words had hardly been uttered when voices were heard, and directly after a familiar voice said loudly, the words coming in through the low pa.s.sage and quite plainly to the boys' ears,--

"Made the oar myself, Skipper Jarks, and I ought to know it again. What I say is as they must ha' managed somehow to ha' got in here."