Accordingly they rose, and strolled along, keeping close to the water's edge, occasionally pausing to throw stones into the sea for Nero to fetch. There were only a few fishermen on the beach, mending their nets and overhauling their gear, who looked up from their work now and again to watch the children; but by-and-by the two young figures with their black attendant disappeared from sight beyond the big rocks which strewed the shore.
"Oh, I say, what a change!" Dick exclaimed, as they came within view of the spot where the headland had jutted out from the cliffs, and they saw with their own eyes the damage the waves had wrought during the night.
The beach at that point was covered with rocks of various sizes, so that they were obliged to proceed slowly, skirting some, clambering over others, and laughing merrily at every slight accident in the shape of slips and falls, which damaged their clothes but did not impair their high spirits.
"It is great fun!" Ruth cried, in accents of delight. "What a jolly time we're having! I suppose," she continued a little nervously, "that the sea is really going out? We should be in a dreadful plight if it was coming in, and we were caught by the tide!"
"There's no danger of that," Dick replied; "it won't be low water for two hours yet. I'm certain, because I asked a fisherman, and he would be sure to know."
"Look at this lovely anemone!" Ruth said, going down on her knees, the better to gaze into the depths of a little pool between two rocks. "Isn't it a beauty?"
"Yes," agreed Dick; "but how about the secret passage? We ought to be looking for that!"
The little girl sprang to her feet, and they went further up the beach, and began to search around the base of the cliffs in hopes of finding an opening somewhere, but all to no purpose.
"It is just here where the east cliff was," Dick remarked, as he glanced up at the precipitous face of the cliffs. He had scrambled to the top of a large rock as he was speaking, and before Ruth had time to answer he slipped off the other side, and disappeared from sight. She laughed gaily, and waited for him to reappear; but instead of climbing up again he called to her in excited tones,—
"Ruth, Ruth, come here! Don't climb over the rock! See if you can't come round!"