"I don't know," said Tom. "Listen!"
It was the girls inside the chest, of course! They had heard Tom's voice, and they were quite mad with joy and excitement—but they couldn't lift up the lid of the chest which they had carefully shut down over themselves! It had got so tightly fastened that they could not push it up, and the two girls were shouting and banging on the lid to make themselves heard.
"There's something in that chest," said Tom in a trembling voice. "Is it the enemy playing a trick?"
"We'll soon see," said his father, in a fierce voice. He rapped out an order to the two men with him, and they went over to the chest. They ripped off the lid—and every one stood ready to fight the enemy.
But it was two small, excited, and most untidy little girls who rose up from the chest, shouting loudly:
"Tom! Andy! It's us! We hid here because we thought you were the enemy!"
Their father picked them out of the chest and hugged them. They were as surprised as he was! They simply couldn't believe their eyes!
"Daddy! It's you! However did you get here? Oh, Tom! Andy! You've come to rescue us just in time. Oh, what a good thing you came to the cave!"
"Why are you here?" asked the boys.
Jill and Mary told their tale, their words tumbling over one another. When their father heard that the enemy guessed that the boys had left on a raft, he hustled them all out of the cave very quickly.