The sea had been right up to the cliff and had washed away the footsteps of the night before. But the children knew which cave the men had come from and they made their way there, first looking to see that nobody else was on the beach too.
They came to the cave. The entrance was large and open. The cave ran back a good way, and was very dark and damp. Seaweed grew from the walls, and at the foot the red and green sea anemones grew, like lumps of jelly, waiting for the tide to sweep into the cave again so that they might open like flowers.
The children switched on their torches. They swung them here and there, all around the cave, looking for the passage that led from the cave.
At first they could find nothing at all. “It’s nothing but walls, walls, walls,” said Mike, flashing his torch round the damp rock that made the sides of the cave. “And at the back it just ends in rock too. Oh dear - I wonder if after all there isn’t a passage!”
“Look here!” shouted Jack suddenly. “What’s this?” He held his torch fairly high up one wall. The children crowded round eagerly. They saw rough steps hewn in the rock - and they could see that the seaweed that grew around had been bruised and torn.
“See that seaweed?” said Jack excitedly. “Well, somebody has trodden on that! That’s the way - up there! Come on, everybody!”
With their torches flashing the children tried to climb up the steep rocky steps in the cave-wall. They were slippery, and it was very difficult.
Suddenly Peggy caught sight of something that looked like a black worm hanging down the wall, and she shone her torch on it.
“Here’s a rope!” she said. “Look! Look! It must be to pull ourselves up by!”
The others stared at the rope. Mike caught hold of it.