Part 72 (2/2)
”Yes, of course Look: we don't know it fro place, where we caught the crab It's all shadowy inside, or we could see our kitchen and fishi+ng tackle”
”No, no; it can't be,” said Mike despairingly: ”if it e should colers' place”
”Yes, you'll see: we shall be carried by directly”
”But there'll be some one there Here, quick: let's roay,”--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 knoill be best to do Yes; but let's ain?” said Vince
”Yes, if you like I don't knohat to say”
”Seehtfully ”And yet I don't know We e; but they'd hunt us out, as we couldn't keep hidden very long And they'd knoere there, because they'd find the boat”
”Perhaps they'd think ere 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 rooreat opening, with its wonderful beach of soft sand, and directly after began to recognise the piled-upmasses round which the waters foamed and bubbled, but became quite bewildered as they tried to ler crew had taken theh on the previous day They passed narrow rifts, but the water always seereat 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 ht, but he could never be in the least sure; and as they went on, he had to content hie 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 botto 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 theout--the rift through which the waters must pass back into the sea--but, if it existed, it was shut froht by the heaped-up rocks, and the current carried theht ere a long while getting out to sea!” said Vince at last: ”we can't have gone near the big channel through which the lugger o”
”Never mind that,” said Mike impatiently; ”there ns of it from up above, when you sat up there and I held the rope”
”Yes,” said Vince gloo 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 the