The cave was dark, and, so the girls declared, decidedly "spooky", but Bevis had brought a piece of candle and a box of matches; so they were able to explore its recesses. There was really not much to see except rugged bits of rock, and heaps of gravel, over which they stumbled in the dim flicker of their solitary candle. They were both extremely relieved when they stepped outside again into the sunshine.
"Ugh! Shouldn't have liked that for a home, thank you!" declared Merle. "I'd have lived outside if I'd been a prehistoric woman."
"How about wild beasts catching you?" asked Bevis. "You'd have been glad to fence yourself safely into the cave at night."
He was turning out the miscellaneous collection in his pockets, and now proudly produced the specimens he had found in the cave—some flint arrow-heads, a skin-scraper, and two bone needles.
"I often wish they could talk," he said, "and tell me who owned them, and what animals they killed, and what hides they scraped and sewed together into clothes. They must have seemed such treasures to the people who first made them. Mr. Barnes is going to dig again here this summer. Perhaps we shall find something more. Last June I helped him to open a mound in the field over there."
"Did you find arrow-heads and bone needles?"
"No, it belonged to the Bronze Age, and a chief was buried there. His wife was lying by his side. The skeletons were quite perfect, and their hands were clasped together. She had a little baby in her other arm. There was a necklace round her throat, and a torque on his head. They must have been grand people when they were alive. I'll show you the mound if you like to come."
Of course the girls wanted to come, and they scrambled up a steep place on to a yet more beautiful part of the headland. The tumulus stood in the midst of a rough field, like the green grassy hillock of a fairy legend. Below, with a hedge between, lay a tiny quarry, where blackthorn was breaking into blossom, and ivy trailed over the remains of an old wall. This seemed a suitable spot to sit down and eat the slices of home-baked cake that Mrs. Penruddock had sent with them. They settled themselves happily for their picnic. From the vantage-point of the wall they could see spread out before them the whole grand panorama of the Bay of Chagmouth. Away on the farther side of the harbour lay The Warren, half-hidden in woods, and higher up gleamed the slated roof and many windows of the Sanatorium.
"We're monarchs of all we survey here," laughed Merle.
"I should think this is No Man's Land on the top of the cliffs," said Mavis.