“Isn’t it great to camp in a cave?” asked Charlie. “How many things I’ve heard about caves! I wonder if any robbers or pirates ever lived in this.”
A little on their left was the high, rocky bank of the cove, with its narrow strip of white sand, sheltered from the wind by the high bluff, on which the retiring wavelets gently rolled, silvered by the moonbeams. In front was a group of reefs, which the boys had threaded, and on which the surf was rolling feather white.
“Look there, boys!” said John; “see the moon shining on that surf, when it rolls up, and then on the black rock when it goes back; isn’t that handsome? I’ve left my gun and powder-horn in the canoe, and now the tide has floated her off; would you wade in?”
“No; I wouldn’t wet my feet; let them be.”
They now lay down to sleep; but Tige, instead of placing himself at John’s feet, as usual, went up on the bank to lie down in the woods.
“What do you suppose makes Tige do that?” asked John.
“Perhaps he don’t like to sleep in a cave,” said Fred, “and wants to be out doors, where he can bark at the moon. Our Watch always wants to be out moonlight nights.”
“I’ll tell you; he don’t like to lie on brush, nor on the rock; I’ll make him a bed.”
John called him back, and threw down his long jacket at his feet, and made him lie down on it. He still seemed uneasy, and got up again; but John scolding at him, he lay down and went to sleep. The whole party were now sound asleep. How long they had slept they knew not, when John was aroused by the barking of Tige, who, not satisfied with waking him, took hold of his collar with his teeth, and pulled him half upright. Stretching out his leg in a fright, he plunged it into the cold water. At the cry John uttered both the boys awoke, when they found themselves in utter darkness, and surrounded by water. The tide, unusually high, had flowed into the cave, put out the fire, the brands of which were floating around them, and filled the whole cave, except the elevation upon which they had made their bed.