“Well, that doesn’t matter. There’s plenty of sand. Look out!”
There was a tremendous splashing in front, and the water came surging by them, while they noticed now that the sides of the place were once more closing in as they advanced.
“Shall we go back?” said Vince; for the sudden disturbance in front, evidently the action of large animals, or fish, had acted as a check to him as well as his companion.
Mike was silent for a few moments. Then he said hoarsely: “I’ll stick to you, Cinder, and do what you do.”
“Then come on,” said the boy, who felt a little ashamed of his feeling of dread.
“Can’t be sharks, can it?” whispered Mike, as, in addition to the lapping and sucking noises made by the water, there was a peculiar rustling and panting.
“Sharks, in a cave like this? No. They’re seals, I’m sure, four or five of them, and they’ve backed away from us till they’ve got to the end. Hark! Don’t you hear? There is a sort of shore there, and they are crawling about.”
He waded forward two or three steps, holding up the light as high as he could; but the feeble rays, half quenched by the thin, dull horn, did not penetrate the gloom, and at last, as the strange noises went on, the boy lowered the lanthorn, opened the door, and turned the light in the direction just before them.
They saw something then, for pairs of eyes gleamed at them out of the darkness, seen vividly for a moment or two, and disappearing, to gleam again, like fiery spots, somewhere else.
Mike wanted to ask if they really were seals; but in spite of a brave effort to be firm, his voice failed him, the surroundings were so strange, and, standing there in the water, he felt so helpless. Every word about the horrors of the Black Scraw told to them by old Daygo came to him with vivid force, and his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and there was a sensation as of something moving the roots of his hair.