"The adit, sir?"
"There's an old adit hereabouts—eh?—that leads down to a cave.... Come, come, my good man, you don't deceive me by putting on that stupid face! We don't allow smuggling on the Islands in these days, and I like to know the secrets of my own property. The cave is called Ogo Vean, or something like it; and if I must explain more precisely, it is where you and your father used to go hunting seals."
"Yes, yes, to be sure," Sam admitted; "an adit there is, or used to be. But," he went on more cheerfully, "you'll find it nothing to look at. I han't set foot inside it for years, and I doubt but the entrance is choked."
"Take me to it," said Sir Cæsar.
Sam, without further remonstrance, led the way. They scrambled out to the edge of the Carn, and there, where the last great boulder thrust itself forward over the sea, Sam scrambled off to the left, and lowered himself down upon a turfy ledge. Warning his master to leave his gun behind and beware of the slippery grass, he sidled out alongside the jutting slab, and suddenly ducked under it. The Lord Proprietor, following, crawled under the stone, and found himself staring into the mouth of the adit—a dark hole less than four feet in height, and overgrown with ivy. Sam had spoken the truth. The passage, whithersoever it led, had been disused for years.
"Cur'ous old place!" said Sam, reflectively, plucking at the ivy. "I've a mind to try the inside of it again, one of these days."
"I've a mind to explore it now," said the Lord Proprietor.
Sam stared at him. "You couldn't, sir; not without a lantern. You'd be breakin' your neck, to a certainty."
"Then fetch a lantern. Look sharp, man! Run back to the farm and fetch a lantern. I'll wait for you—no, not here: a few minutes on this ledge would turn my head giddy—but on the Carn above."
Without further words, he worked his body around carefully, and led the way back to the summit.