“There, if you want to lose the cargo, we’ll pull out at once, and give up,” he said.
“But I don’t,” I replied; “I am staunch enough; only I don’t want to risk my life.”
“Well, who does?” he said. “Only keep still, and we shall be all right.”
The few minutes we had been conversing had been long enough for the tide to float the boat once more, and this time I raised my hand to the root and thrusting against the tunnel-covered, weed-hung, slimy woodwork, soon had the boat’s keel again in the sand, so as to prevent her being sucked out by the reflux of the tide. At times we could hear shouts, twice pistol-shots, and then we were startled by the dull, heavy report of a small cannon.
“That’s after the chasse-marée,” whispered my companion; “but she sails like a witch. She’s safe unless they knock a spar away.”
“I wish we were,” I said, for I did not feel at all comfortable in our dark hole, up which we were being forced farther and farther by the increasing tide; while more than once we had to hold on tightly by the horrible slimy piles, to keep from being drawn back.
“Just the place to find dead bodies,” whispered my companion, evidently to startle me.
“Just so,” I said coldly. “Perhaps they’ll find two to-morrow.”
“Don’t croak,” was the polite rejoinder; and then he was silent; but I could hear a peculiar boring noise being made, and no further attempts at a joke issued from my friend’s lips.
“Suppose we try and get out now?” I whispered, after another quarter of an hour’s listening in the darkness, and hearing nothing but the soft rippling, and the “drip, drip” of water beyond us; while towards the mouth came the “lap, lap” of the waves against the sides of the tunnel, succeeded by a rushing noise, and the rattling of the loose mussels clustering to the woodwork, now loudly, now gently; while every light rustle of the seaweed seemed to send a shiver through me.