There was no time to look out, no means of doing so in the darkness, and after all no need. Vince had placed his hand upon something hairy and moist, and let it stay there, as he wondered what it was, till that which he had felt grasped the fact that the touch was an unaccustomed one, and a monstrous seal started up, threw out its head and began to shuffle rapidly away from where it had been asleep. The alarm was taken by half a dozen more, and by the time the two boys were afoot and had seized their weapons—splash, splash, splash!—the heavy creatures had plunged back into the pool from which they had crawled to sleep, and by the whispering and lapping of the water on the walled sides of the cave the boys knew that the curious beasts were swimming rapidly away towards the mouth.
“Nice damp sort of bedfellows,” said Vince, laughing merrily. “I say, Mike, I’m all right. I don’t know, though—I can’t feel my legs very well. Yes, they’re all right.”
“What do you mean?” said Mike. “I meant they haven’t eaten any part of you, have they?”
“Don’t talk stuff,” said Mike, rather pettishly. “How could we be so foolish as to go to sleep?”
“No foolishness about it,” said Vince quietly. “We were tired, and it was dark, and we dropped off. I say, I’m hungry. Think we’ve been to sleep long?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps. There’s only one way to find out: go to the mouth of the hole.”
“Yes—that’s the only way,” said Vince; “and now the use of the candle comes in. I don’t know, though: it seems a pity to light the last bit. Shall we go and see?”
Mike suppressed a shiver of dread, and said firmly,—“Yes.”
Another point arose, and that was as to whether they should put on their clothes again.
It seemed a pity to do so and again get them wet; but both felt repugnant to attempting to wade back without them, and they began to feel about, half in dread lest the seals which had visited them in the night should have chosen their clothes for a sleeping place.