“I don’t bounce, Ladle; I felt squirmy enough. Of course you couldn’t help feeling creepy when you didn’t know where you were going next.”
“Well, I daresay you felt so too.”
“Of course I did,” continued Vince. “I expected to put my foot in a great crack every minute, and fall right through to Botany Bay.”
“Yes,” said Mike seriously. “There’s something about being in the dark that is queer.”
“Till you get used to it,” said Vince, jumping up, with his boots laced. “Now, then, look sharp. I want to have another good look round.”
“Ready,” said Mike. “I say, let’s make a fireplace here, and bring wood, and get a frying-pan and a kettle, and cook fish and make tea and enjoy ourselves.”
Vince nodded assent.
“Yes,” he said; “might sleep here if you came to that. Sand would make a jolly bed and bed-clothes too. I say, we’ve found a place that some boys would give their heads to have. Why, there’s no end to the fun we can have here. We can fish from the mouth.”
“Yes, and I found some oysters—put my foot on them.”
“And we can bring things by degrees: potatoes and apples and flour. Why, Ladle, old chap, we can beat old Robinson Crusoe all to nothing, and smugglers and robbers and those sort of people. But we must keep it a secret. If any one else knew of this place being here it would be spoiled at once. I say, what’s that?”