Chapter 26

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_ CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

Aleck woke up wondering, for he felt as if he had had a good night's rest and that it ought to be morning, whereas it was very dark.

This was puzzling, and what was more curious was the fact that on moving he found that he had his clothes on.

Naturally enough he moved, and turned upon his other side, to find that it was not so dark now, for he was looking at what seemed to be a beautifully blue dawn. Then someone yawned, and the lad was fully awake to his position.

"Sailor!" he said, loudly.

"Eh? My watch? My--my--I'll--here, Aleck, that you?"

"Yes, it's morning; rouse up. I fancy it must be late."

"Looks to me as if it is dreadfully early. I fancied I was being roused up to go on deck. What are you doing?"

"Going to get a light."

This Aleck did after the customary nicking and blowing. The candle in the lanthorn was lit, and the lads, after cautiously testing the depth of the water, indulged in a good bathe, gaining confidence as they swam, and finally dried themselves upon an exceedingly harsh towel formed of a piece of canvas, one of many hanging where they had been thrown over pieces of rock.

As they dressed they could see that it was getting lighter inside the arch, which gradually showed more plainly, and as the water grew lower during the time that they partook of the meal which formed their breakfast, the twilight had broadened, so that both became hopeful of seeing the tide sink beneath the crown of the arch so as to give them a glance at the sunlit surface of the sea.

"How long are you going to wait for the smuggler?" asked the middy, suddenly.

"Not long," was the reply. "It is not fair to you. But I should like to give him a little law. What do you say to waiting here till the tide has got to its lowest, and as soon as it turns we'll start?"

"Very well, I agree," said the midshipman, "for I don't think that we shall have long to wait. I was expecting it to go down so low that I should see the full daylight yesterday, but before I got the slightest peep it began to rise again."

"But it came lighter than this?" said Aleck.

"No; I don't think it was so light as this. I believe it is just about turning now."

The sailor proved to be right; and as soon as Aleck felt quite sure he turned to his companion and proposed that they should start.

"I don't know what my uncle will say," he said. "You'd better come home with me. He will be astonished when he sees that I have found you."

"Did he know that I was lost?"

"Of course. Your fellow officer came straight to our place to search it, thinking we knew where you were. Well, uncle will be very glad. Come along. I shall take the lanthorn with us to see our way up the zigzag. I think I could manage in the dark, as I came down and know something of the place, but it would be awkward for you."

"Oh, yes; let's have all the light we can," said the midshipman. "I'm quite ready. Shall we start?"

"Yes, come on," was the reply, and, holding the lanthorn well down, Aleck led the way along by the waterside till the rocks which had acted as stepping-stones were reached, and which were now quite bare.

These were passed in safety, but not without two or three slips; and then after a walk back towards the twilight, somewhere about equal to the distance they had come, Aleck struck off up a slope and in and out among the blocks that had fallen from the roof to where he easily found the lowest slope of the zigzag, which they prepared to mount, the light from the lanthorn showing the nicks cut in the stone at the side.

"It's much harder work climbing up than sliding down," said Aleck.

"Of course," replied the midshipman, who toiled on steadily in the rear; "but it's very glorious to have one's leg free, and to know that before long one will be up in the glorious light of day. I say, are you counting how many of these slopes we have come up?"

"No," said Aleck, "I lost count; but I think we must be half way up."

"Bravo! But, I say, these smugglers are no fools. Who'd ever expect to find such a place as this? It must have taken them years to make."

"They were making it or improving it for years," said Aleck; "but they found the crack already made--it was natural."

"Think so?"

"Yes; the rock split just like a flash of lightning. Mind how you come--the roof is lower down here. Let's see, this must be where I hit my head in coming down. No, it can't be, for that was somewhere about the middle of one of the slopes, I think, and this is the end, just where it turns back and forms another slope."

Aleck ceased speaking and raised the lanthorn so as to examine the rock above and around him more attentively.

"Nice work this for a fellow's uniform. What with the climbing and sleeping in it I shall be in rags. But why don't you go on?" said the midshipman.

"I--I don't quite know," said Aleck, hesitating. "It seems different here to what it was when I came down."

"But you said you came down in the dark?"

"I did, and I suppose that's why it seems different."

"Well, never mind. Go on. It hurts my feet standing so long resting in this nick."

Aleck was still busy with the lanthorn, and remained silent, making his companion more impatient still.

"I say, go on," he said. "Why do you stop?"

"Because it seems to me as if I had come the wrong way, taken a wrong turning that I did not know of--one, I suppose, that I passed in the dark."

"But this must be right," said the midshipman; "it goes up. Here are all the nicks for one's feet, and the part in the middle is all ground out as if things were dragged up. Go on, old chap; you must be right."

"So I think," said Aleck; "but I can't go on. It seems to me as if the place comes to an end here, and I can get no farther."

"That's a nice sort of a story. But you carried the light; have you taken a wrong turning?"

"I didn't know that there were any turnings."

"Have another good look, and make sure."

Aleck peered in all directions by the aid of the lanthorn--a very short task, seeing how they were shut in--and then carefully felt the stones.

"Well?" said the midshipman.

"I'm regularly puzzled," said Aleck. "Of course, it's very different coming in the other direction, and by candlelight instead of the darkness."

"Then you're regularly at fault."

"Quite."

"Try back, then. You light me and I'll lead."

They slid down to the bottom of the slope and stopped.

"I say," cried the midshipman; "you'll have to take me to your place and find me some clothes, for I shan't have a rag on if we're going to do much of this sort of thing."

"This must be right," said Aleck, without heeding the remark. "I can shut my eyes here and be sure of it by the feel."

"Then it's of no use to go down any farther?"

"Not a bit," said Aleck, firmly. "Look for yourself. Here are the foot nicks at the side, and the floor is all worn smooth. We must be right."

"Then forward once more. You must have missed something."

Aleck toiled up the slope again, reached the top, where the crack should have run in a fresh direction and at a different inclination, and carefully examined the place with his light, while his heart began to beat faster and faster from the excitement that was growing upon him rapidly. For as he ran his hands over the rock in front, which completely blocked his way, he noted that there were three great pieces--one which ran right into the angle, where the pathway should have made its turn; a second, which lay between it and the smooth wall at the bend; and another smaller piece, which lay over both, jammed tightly in between the two other stones and the roof, and carrying conviction to Aleck's mind as he now recalled the peculiar grating sounds he had heard soon after the smuggler left them the previous day.

He was brought out of his musings by his companion, who suddenly exclaimed:

"I say, look here; I'm not a puffin."

"Eh? No, of course not. What made you say that?"

"Because you seemed to think I was, keeping me perched up on a piece of rock like this. Now, then, are you going on?"

Aleck was silent, for he had not the heart to say that which was within.

"Are you going dumb? If you've lost your way say so, and let's begin again."

"It's worse than that," said Aleck.

"Worse? What do you mean?"

"Look here," said Aleck, holding the lanthorn up high with one hand, and pointing with the other.

"Well, I'm looking, and I can see nothing but stone--rough stone."

"Neither can I. We can go no farther."

"What! You don't mean to say that the roof has fallen in?"

"No; it's worse than that."

"Can't be," cried the middy.

"Yes, it is, for we could have dug the fallen stones away. Sailor, I'm obliged to say it--we're regularly trapped!"

"What! Who by? Oh, nonsense!"

"It's true enough, I'm afraid. The smuggler would not do as we did. We trusted him, but he would not trust us."

"You don't mean to say he has blocked us in?"

"I'm obliged to say so. I heard him forcing down the stones after he'd gone. Look for yourself. I can't move one."

"No," said the midshipman, quietly, as he reached past Aleck and tried to give the top one a shake. "He has been too clever for us. Think we can move these lumps? No; their own weight will keep them down. That's it, Aleck; the things here are too good to lose, and he has got us safe."

To Aleck's astonishment he had begun to whistle a dismal old air in a minor key after propping himself across the rough crack so that he could not slip.

"What's to be done?" said Aleck, at last.

"Done, eh?" was the reply. "Well, I'm afraid if I had been alone and found this out, I should have lain down, let myself slide to the bottom, and then set to and howled; but the old saying goes, 'Two's company, even if you're going to be hanged,' and you're pretty good company, so let's go back to the cave. We can breathe there. The heat here is awful. This shows that it doesn't do to be too cocksure of anything. Come on down."

"But we must have a thoroughly good try to move the stones," said Aleck, angrily.

"Not a bit of use. That brute has wedged them in and jumped upon them. Why, we may push and heave till we're black in the face and do no good. We're fixed up safe."

"And you're going to give up like that?"

"Not I," said the midshipman, calmly. "Show me what I can do, and if it's likely to be any good I'll work as long as you like; but it's of no use to make ourselves more miserable than we are. Come on down."

The young sailor spoke in so commanding a tone that Aleck yielded, and, following his comrade's example, he slid down slope after slope, and finally stood in the great open cavern, breathing in long deep breaths of the fresh soft air.

"Hah! That's better," said the midshipman. "I felt stifled up in that hole. Now I don't bear malice against anybody, but I think I should like to see that smuggling ruffian shut up here for a few days. Look here, Aleck; all he said was pretence--he never meant us to get out again."

"Oh, I don't know," said Aleck, passionately. "He might, or he might not. Now, then, what's to be done--try and find some tools, and then get to work to chip those stones to pieces?"

"No, it would only mean try and try in vain."

"Here, what has come to you?" cried Aleck. "You take it all as coolly as if it were of no consequence at all. I don't believe you can understand yet how bad it all is."

"Oh, yes, I can," said the midshipman, coolly; "but I've got no more miserables left in me. I used 'em all up when I was chained up by myself in the dark. I feel now quite jolly compared to what I was."

"Nonsense. You can't grasp what a terrible strait we're in."

"Oh, yes, I can. We're buried alive."

"Well, isn't that horrible?" said Aleck.

"Pretty tidy, but not half so bad as being buried dead. It would be all over then; but as we're buried alive perhaps we shall be able to unbury ourselves."

"You must be half mad," said Aleck, angrily, "or you'd never talk so lightly."

"Lightly? I don't talk lightly. I'm as serious as a judge."

"But what are we to do?"

"Wait a bit and let's think. We can live down here for ever so long; that is, as long as the rations last. Then we shall have to try some other way out."

"Yes; but what way?"

The midshipman pointed towards the dimly-seen submerged arch.

"Can you swim?" he said.

"Of course. Pretty well."

"And dive?"

"Yes."

"Then my notion is that we take it as coolly as we can till we think it's a suitable time. Then we'll strip, make a couple of bundles of our clothes, go in as near to that arch as we can, and then try to dive under and out to the daylight."

Aleck raised the lanthorn to bring its dim light full upon his companion's face, gazing at him hard as if in doubt of his sanity. For the words were spoken as calmly and coolly as if he had been proposing some ordinary jump into clear water at a bathing-place.

But he only saw that the speaker's countenance was perfectly unruffled, and his next words convinced him that he was speaking in all seriousness.

"Well, don't look so horrified," he said, half laughingly. "You haven't been bragging, have you? Don't say you can't swim?"

"Oh, I can swim easily enough," said Aleck, impatiently; "but suppose one rose too soon, right up amongst those rugged rocks, with the sea-wrack hanging down in long strips ready to strangle us?"

"I'm not going to suppose anything of the sort," said the midshipman. "Why should you suppose such horrors? I might just as well say: suppose a great shark should rush in open-mouthed to swallow me down and then grab you by the leg, throw you over on to his back, and carry you about till he felt hungry again?"

"But you don't see the danger?" cried Aleck.

"And don't want to see it. I daresay it is dangerous, but nearly everything is if you look at it in that way. Well, what now? Why do you look at me like that?"

"Because I don't understand you," said Aleck. "Yesterday you seemed as weak as a girl, while now you are proposing impossible things, and seem to be trying to brag as if to make me feel that you are not so weak as you were then."

"Perhaps so," said the middy, laughing good-humouredly. "I was as weak as a girl yesterday, but I don't feel so now; and though you are partly right, and I don't want you to think me such a molly, I really am ready to make a dash at it if you will."

"I'll do anything that I think is possible," said Aleck, gravely, "but I don't want to be rash."

"Then you think it would be rash to try and dive out under that archway?"

"Horribly," said Aleck, with a shudder; and at that moment the candle, which, unnoticed through the dull horn, had burned down and begun flickering in the socket, suddenly flashed up brightly, flickered for a moment or two, and went out. _

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