“It might have fallen after they had gone,” said the sleepy voice of Luiz. Then a sharper voice spoke loudly.
“This is disgraceful - to let the boy slip through your fingers like this! Are you sure there is no other way out of this passage?”
“There’s a branch off it somewhere here,” came Luiz’s voice. Footsteps came up to the blockage through which George and the others had managed to squeeze.
“There’s a great pile of stones here,” said Mr. Diaz, peering over the stones that the boys had piled up. “And another roof-fall or something beyond. They couldn’t possibly have got through that. No, it looks as if they escaped down that passage to Peep-Hole, and the roof fell after they had gone through. Well, our best course is to go back to the Old House and make a raid on Peep-Hole. The boys are sure to be there.”
The voices and the footsteps grew fainter. At last they could no longer be heard. Everybody sighed with relief.
“Now we can get on,” said George cheerfully. “I thought somehow they wouldn’t guess we’d gone this way - and anyway they don’t know that it leads down to the passage to the shore-cave. Come on!”
They stumbled down the secret passage and at last came to an opening in the ground at their feet. Jack shone his torch down.
“This is where our passage joins the shore-passage,” he cried in excitement. “We’ll have to jump down into it. No wonder we didn’t spot it when we used the shore-passage - we didn’t dream of looking for holes in the roof, did we?”
They all jumped down into the passage below. Then they made their way quickly to the cave, sliding down into it, holding safely to the rope that swung there to help them.
“I wonder if the girls are there in the boat all right,” said Mike.