He set the example by putting one foot on the gunwale and springing in lightly. Mike followed, and then the captain; while the man standing ankle-deep in the water waited till they were seated, and then, giving the boat a good thrust out, sprang on the stern, and climbed in as they glided over the transparent water, stepping forward quickly to seize an oar, and pulling sharply with his companion.
The boys gazed eagerly upward as soon as they were clear of the great overhanging archway, and saw the impossibility of escape by any cliff-climbing; for the mighty rocks were at least twenty feet out of the perpendicular, leaning over towards the little bay, whose waters were running, eddying and boiling like a whirlpool as they raced along, seizing the boat’s head and seeming about to drag her right along towards a jagged cluster of rocks, standing just above the surface, and amidst which the current raged and foamed furiously.
But the men knew their work. One pulled hard, the other backed water, and by their united efforts the boat was forced into an eddy close under the cliff; and to their amazement the boys found that they were being carried in the opposite direction to that in which the main body of the water was racing along.
“You vill escape and climb ze cliff? No, mes enfans,” said the captain: “you cannot climb. You vill take my boat to go avay? Aha! you sink so? No, it is not for you to manage ze boat. She vill capsize herself if you try.”
Vince said nothing, but eagerly looked around; but it was everywhere the same—the roaring waters tearing wildly along in the crater-like cove, and from their seat in the boat no entrance, no exit, was visible.
“Now I take you bose and drop you ovaire-board: you sink, you go home?” said the captain, showing his teeth. “Yaas, you go home, but not to see ze bon papa, ze belle maman. It is not possible. Von of my men say von day he have sick of me, and he vill go. He shump ovaire-board to svim, and he svim vis his arm and leg von, two, twenty stroke, and zen he trow les mains out of ze vater, and he cry for ze boat; but zere vas no boat, and he turn round upon himself two time, and go down a hole in ze vater. I stand and look at him, but he came up again nevaire. He vas a good man—bon matelot—but he go. You like to shump in and svim? Eh bien, you shake ze hand, shump in. Au revoir, but ve shall meet again nevaire. You go? Non? Eh bien! I make you ze offaire.”
The boys felt that it was all true, and marvelled where they were going, for the eddy was taking them along by the mighty rocks, which were overhanging them again; and, as far as they could make out, the cliffs under which they passed and the ridge away facing the cavern mouth, which they had imagined to be an island, were all one.
The captain seemed to be paying little heed to them, sitting with his eyes half-closed; but he was watching them all the time closely, and noted their astonishment as the men suddenly began to tug at their oars with all their might, apparently to avoid a rock, round one side of which the water was rushing with tremendous force, just as if the eddy stream along which they had been riding suddenly curved round it. The men were making for the other end, and as they drew nearer the water roared and splashed up, and it appeared to both that they must be carried right upon it by some undertow.
But every foot of the place, and all its difficulties, were perfectly familiar to the captain’s crew, and by making use of the many cross streams and eddies, they were able to guide the boat into safety, as in this case; for just as Mike seized the gunwale with one hand, to be prepared for the shock, and Vince clenched his fists and gave a glance to the left, the boat’s prow passed the end of the detached rock, they glided into an opening like a gash cut down through the massive rock-wall, and the next minute were swept into a comparatively calm pool, surrounded by towering cliffs, which seemed to overlap on their right; and there, right before them, rode by a couple of hawsers attached to great rings fixed in the rock-face behind, a long, low three-masted lugger of the kind known as a chasse-marée.
Vince looked sharply round for the channel by which this vessel must come and go—for it seemed certain that such a way must exist, since so large a boat could not by any means have entered the circular cove facing the cavern; and he was not long in seeing that, some twenty or thirty feet beyond her bow, the water was coming swiftly in round the cliff, which lapped over another to its right, but so calmly did the tide run that at the first its motion was unperceived.