“And walk straight into dear Mr. Diaz and his friend Luiz!” said Jack. “No, thank you. Besides, I’d prefer to do it in daytime. It’s a bit too creepy now. Come on, let’s go back to bed and talk.”
They all went back up the steep cliff-path, through the scented garden and into their tower. The girls curled up in one bed in the top room and the boys in the other.
And they talked. How they talked! They were so thrilled with the night’s adventure that it was dawn before they thought of really going to bed.
“You see, what happened was they signalled to the boat to come in with the smuggled goods, whatever they were,” said Jack, for the twentieth time, “and Mr. Diaz and his friend slipped down from the Old House to the shore by the secret passage that leads to that cave - and then they took the goods up that way back to the Old House. So we never saw them.”
“When can we explore the cave for that secret passage, Jack?” said Peggy longingly.
“To-morrow!” said Jack, hugging his knees, as he sat in Mike’s bed.
“To-day you mean!” said Mike, with a laugh, and he pointed to where the eastern sky was beginning to shine with a silvery light. “It’s to-day now. Come on, we really must go to sleep for a bit!”
The girls went down to their room. The boys settled into their beds and were asleep in a few seconds. It seemed as if they had only been in bed for a few minutes when Dimmy awakened them at half-past seven.
“Are you never going to wake to-day?” she said in amazement. “Did you keep awake half the night, you naughty children?”
“Perhaps we did, Dimmy, perhaps we did!” said Jack, with a laugh - and not another word would he say to explain why they were all such sleepyheads that morning!