"Did the sea make a noise like that before?" She spoke half to herself, half to the little boy, who was clinging closely to her skirts behind.
"Why, you silly, the sea always makes a noise like that," answered Eustace; and he tried to push Eliza forward, for he did not like the darkness, and was impatient to reach that spot of light below them, which he could see now as well as Eliza. She, too, would be glad enough to be out upon the beach once more, although she feared that Nurse would be angry with her for staying away so long. But even this was forgotten in the tenseness with which she listened, and the care she took that the little boy should not push past her or make her slip down the steps.
"Oh, you are slow!" said the little fellow, impatiently. "Let me come first," he added; and he tried again to push past the girl.
But she firmly kept her place, and held him back.
"Listen! Listen!" she said. "I think the water is in the cave where I picked up the pretty shells; and if it is, and you should fall in, you might be drowned."
The little fellow was awed for a minute, but quickly exclaimed—
"I am not afraid. If the water has got in we must run through it."
But Eliza was not to be moved from her determination, and would not go faster, for above the roar of the water outside and the swish-swish of it as it rose across the floor of the cave, she thought she could hear a closer lap-lap, as though the waves were trying to climb the stairs they were descending. So she put the foot that was to descend first very slowly and cautiously forward, and before the bottom was reached, her worst fears were realized, for the descending foot vent into deep water at last. The poor girl sank down upon the step on which the little boy was standing, and for the moment was quite overcome by the horror that seemed to have seized upon her. But she quickly mastered it for fear of frightening the child.