The Smuggler's Cave

by George A. Birmingham

"Besides," said Jimmy, "they've both run away and we can't get at them."

It was, oddly enough, the vicar who hit on the solution of the difficulty.

"This is only Tuesday," he said. "As long as the things are taken out of the church before Sunday it will be all right. Suppose we lower them all down into the cave again on Friday or Saturday. The Customs officers will have given up searching by that time."

"Splendid!" said Beth. "No one ever goes into the cave except you, Aunt Agatha. I should think the brandy and other things might stay there for ever without anybody knowing."

"It does seem a pity about the silk," said Mary. "Such waste."

"And I did hope——" said Mrs. Eames, with a deep sigh.

Everyone understood and sympathised with her. She was called upon to renounce her ambition, to surrender a great hope at the very moment of fruition. The cave had been advertised by the pageant, would be re-advertised by the vicar's discovery. Crowds of people would come to see it. Antiquaries would explore its depths. Picnic parties would shout hilariously to its echoing walls. Just one effort, scarcely an effort, merely the allowing of things to take their course and all this would be realised. Hailey Compton would be famous. Wealth would pour in upon its inhabitants. A great and glorious work for the village would be accomplished. But all this, so it seemed, must be given up. The cave must lapse into a solitude again and the village remain as poor and primitive as it had ever been. It was a bitter disappointment to Mrs. Eames; but she bore it bravely, sustained by the thought that her beloved Timothy was at last doing something, though something in itself undesirable.

For the rest of that morning and all the afternoon the Pallas Athene raced at incredible speeds, east and west on the great main roads of the south of England. Jimmy, at the steering-wheel, broke record after record and rejoiced. Beth, beside him, glowed with a satisfaction not unlike her aunt's. Like the Reverend Timothy Eames, Jimmy, her lover, was proving himself a worthy man, actually doing something of real usefulness. He was breaking laws with reckless daring all day long in order to be able to break other laws all night. But—Beth thrilled with the thought, he was saving the honour of men and women, the good name of the church, the constitution of the State, the majesty of the Empire.

At ten o'clock that night, Jimmy, seated in the loop of a carefully tied knot, was lowered slowly, turning giddily round, from the squire's pew in Hailey Compton church into the profound darkness of the cave below. Clinging tightly to the rope, paying it out inch by inch were Mrs. Eames, Mary Lambert, Beth Appleby and the vicar. Their muscles were tense, their faces set with anxious determination. A distant sound of rolling stones and a sharp twitching of the rope told them that the ordeal was safely over. The rope was hauled up again and Beth, with white face and clenched teeth, took her seat in the loop. She grasped the rope above her firmly. The descent began. She bumped against the sides of the hole and was bruised. She grew giddy as the rope swung round and round. But her courage held. She was received at last in Jimmy's arms.

Then began for the whole party a night of desperate toil. Jimmy and Beth, sweating and half smothered in the close air of the cave, dragged the bales and cases to the gaping hole. Their fingers bled where the skin was rubbed off them. Their nails were broken. Their muscles were strained to utter weariness. Far above them, the vicar, Mrs. Eames and Mary hauled at the rope. The slowly raised weights seemed to grow heavier and heavier. They moved uneasily in a space which became gradually narrowed and less sufficient as bales and cases were piled up in the square pew. How fortunate that the eighteenth century lord of the manor, who designed and built the pew, should have liked ample space for his devotions! He planned largely, a room rather than a pew, intending perhaps to use the place not only for worship but for just such purposes as it was used for that night.