Part 40 (2/2)

”Oh, that's it, is it?” cried Rauard, but did not appear in the least bit alarmed ”Fed you too well, have I? Had tooto kick up your heels and squeak and snort Never ive me that basket?”

”No”

”Then you shan't have this There!” cried Raht, he walked straight away, swinging his lanthorn after he had shut it with a snap

”Going to give it to me?” he cried, as he stopped about half way to the trap-door

”No”

”You'll want all this, and I've got soood tack inside”

”Be off, fellow, and don't bother me”

”Yah! Who want's to?” cried Ra , when he shouted back,--

”No oats to-day, pony Good-bye”

Archy leaped up and stood listening with his heart beating fast, and his head bent in the direction taken by the boy

”How unfortunate!” he said ”But I could not help it Will he come back?”

He listened and listened and hesitated, but there was no sound, and still he hesitated, till quite a couple of hours must have passed, when he uttered a loud exultant cry, deterht through the darkness for the open way

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

Thebreath of the salt air, as he stood at the opening in the cliff face He tightened his belt, drew his red cap down on his head, wished that his hands were not so sore, and an to creep through the hole till his head ell out, and he could look round for ene that he could see was a gull sailing round and round between hiht

And now, for the first tiull looked very san to realise that the hole out of which he had thrust his head was fully four hundred feet above where the waves broke, and that it must be two hundred more to the top of the cliff

It looked more perilous too than it had seemed before, but the lad was in nowise daunted The as open to him to climb up or lower himself down apparently, but he chose the for as he did how very little at the base of the cliffs was left bare even in the lowest tides, and that if he got down he would either have to swim or to sit perched upon a shelf of rock till some boat came and picked him off

There was no cutter in view, but he did not trouble about that He stopped only to gaze down at the dazzling blue sea, and thought that if it caht off into deep water, and then he drew hie, a few inches in width, and stood holding on by the stones round the opening, looking upward for the best way to get up

”Don't seem easy,” he said cheerily, ”but every foot clioes”

As he ceased speaking he drew a deep breath, and then feeling that safety depended upon his being firm, cool, and deliberate, he e upon which he stood, till he found a spot where he could ascend higher

It was necessary that he should find such a spot, for the ledge had grown narrower and in another yard died co his hands to their full extent, he found a place for one foot, then for the other, repeated the experie similar to that which he had just left, when one foot slipped from the stone upon which it rested, and had the lad lost his nerve he htly, waited aupon his hands and one foot Then cal about he found firm foothold, raised hie

”Wouldn't have done to tu, a dive another I suppose the water's pretty deep down there”

The ledge he was noas fully a foot wide, and the refuse and fish bones hich it was strewn told plainly enough that in the spring ti--place of the sea-birds which swar the coast