“Yes, I did one day when we hadn’t got it smoky.”
“We don’t often get it smoky,” protested Mike. “But I say, don’t talk like that. You were as eager to make our little secret place there as I was. You don’t mean to say you’re getting tired of it?”
“I don’t know,” said Vince. “Yes, I do. No, I’m not getting tired of it yet, for it does seem very jolly, as you say, when we do get down here all alone, and feel as if we were thousands of miles from everywhere. But I shall get tired of it some day. I don’t think it’s half so good since we found the way into the other cave.”
“I do,” said Mike. “It’s splendid to have made such a discovery, and to find that once upon a time there were pirates or smugglers here.”
Meanwhile they were slowly descending the bed of the ancient underground rivulet, so familiar with every turn and hollow that they knew exactly where to place their feet when they reached the little falls, and never thinking of stopping to examine the pot-holes, where the great rounded boulders, that had turned and turned by the force of the falling water, still remained. Vince’s light danced about in the darkness like a large glowworm, and Mike followed it, humming a tune, whistling, or making a few remarks from time to time; but he was very thoughtful all the same, as his mind dwelt upon the packages in the far cavern, and he felt the desire to examine them increase, till he was quite in a state of fever.
“Pretty close, aren’t we?” said Mike at last, to break the silence of the gloomy tunnel.
“Yes, we shall be there in five minutes now. But, I say, suppose we find that some one has been since we were here?”
“Well, whoever it was, couldn’t have taken the caves away.”
“No; but if Lobster has found out the way down?—and I dare say he has, after tumbling into the front hall.”
“’Tisn’t the front hall,” said Mike laughingly; “it’s the back door. Front hall’s down by the sea, where the seal cave is.”