“Nay, not they. Nobody can climb down they rocks.”
“And you sink zere is no one who find ze leetler passage?”
“Sure of it, skipper. If any one had found that there way down do you think he’d ha’ kep’ it to hisself? Nay, I should ha’ been sure to ha’ heered it, and if I had I’d ha’ done some’at as ’d startled him as tried to go down. On’y one man in the Crag know’d of that till they two dropped upon it somehow. I dunno how. It’s been a wonder to me, though, as nobody never did. Well, I must be going back: I’ve got a rough bit to do ’fore I gets home, and then I’ve got to go up to the Doctor’s.”
“Vell, you vill eat and drink somesing,” said the captain. “Come to ze cabin, and ve sall see.”
As it happened, he led the way across the deck, and then along the port side aft to the cabin-hatch, from whence came soon after the call for the cook, who went to and fro carrying plates and glasses, while the two boys still stood in their former places, leaning over the bulwarks and apparently watching the phosphorescent creatures in the sea, but seeing none.
It was some time before either of them spoke, and then it was Vince who broke the silence.
“So we’re both dead and swept out to sea, are we?” he said.
He waited for a few moments, and then, as Mike did not speak, he said, in a low whisper:
“I say, Mike, shouldn’t you like to take a piece of rock and drop it through old Joe’s boat?”
“No.”