"There are some that one can see the water going into, but are quite hidden," said Gheena. "I believe there are entrances from the land. I know of a way down to one of those caves. My old nurse, who came from the village out there, said there were two or three others, but she never showed them to me."
Hook stroked his chin thoughtfully.
"One is curious. It's just over there, if you'd like to see it, with the tide coming in its ease."
Stafford looked longingly at the lighted house, for Gheena was already flying back through the scrum of trees and out on to the chill low cliffs with the sea moaning below. Here, diving through a tangle of dead bracken and unpleasantly live gorse, she came to a hole in the ground, caught a lichen-covered slab of slaty rock and dropped out of sight, remarking cheerily that it was pitch dark and very slippery.
The cliff ran out just there in bare slaty stone, with stunted fuchsias clinging in the crevices, and brambles creeping along, long and thorny.
To get goatwise from slab to slab in a grey gloom of almost complete darkness, with the touch of the stones biting numbly, was not pleasant, but the two men followed Gheena down.
"Here is the shingle. The sea is up. Oh——"
For Stafford snapped on an electric torch and a dripping gloomy cavern came into view. It smelt dankly salt, and cold sea-water was pouring along the wet floor, sluicing in through inlets in the rock.
One could imagine sightless slimy fish in there living in the deep pools in the rocks, chill weeds and noisome things. The sea echoed outside, slushing and gurgling, and the swelling rim of water creeping in through hidden channels was ghost-like in its grey upward movement.
"But there's no outlet," was what Hook said thoughtfully.