“Yes,” said Mike, but his tone suggesting no. “I feel as if I could sit down in the sand and look out at the sea and the birds on the rocks there opposite for ever.”
“Without getting hungry, I suppose,” said Vince. “Come on. It won’t be long before we come down again. I say, Ladle, what a place to come to on wet days!”
“Splendid; and I shan’t be satisfied till you and I have sailed round here to see if there isn’t a way of getting into the bay with a boat.”
“We might; but I daresay there isn’t. Very likely it’s such a race and so full of rocks that we should be upset directly. Come on.”
They went down and peered through the low arch into the narrow way between the rocks, and onward into the other chamber, which looked black and dark to them as they entered from the well-lit outer cavern. But in a few minutes their eyes were accustomed to the gloom, and the place seemed filled with a soft, pearly light which impressed Mike, who was the poetical lad of the pair.
“I say,” he said softly, “isn’t this one beautiful?”
“Not half so beautiful as the other,” said Vince bluntly.
“Oh yes, it is so soft and grey. It’s just as if it was the inside of a great oyster-shell.”
“And you were a pearl,” cried Vince, laughing. “Never mind; it is very jolly, though, and if ever we slept here this place would do for bedroom, but I don’t think that’s very likely. Well, I suppose we’d better go. We’ve been here a precious long time, and I shall be late for tea.”
“Never mind: come home and have tea with me. I don’t feel in much of a hurry to go up through that black hole.”