“No,” replied Mike thoughtfully.
“And running along at such a rate as we are, we ought to have been ever so far away by this time, instead of rushing along here deep down among the rocks, as if we were in a narrow channel. I can’t make it out: can you?”
Mike remained thoughtful and silent again for a time, and then said wearily,—
“No; I can’t understand it. It gives me the headache to think; and being whirled along like this is so confusing. My thoughts go rushing along like the water.”
“Don’t talk so loud, Mike,” said Vince, after a pause, “or we shall be heard. But we must have left them a long way behind, or else they’ve covered over their lanthorn so as to come upon us by surprise.”
“Think they are near us, then?”
“Must be, because the tide would carry them along as fast as it does us; and they have the advantage of knowing the way. Oh! I do wish we could get out in the open sea; and then, once we were clear of the rocks, we’d show them what the boat could do. It would puzzle them to—”
He was going to say “catch us then,” but he stopped short, gazing upward, out of the black chasm in which they were, at the stars.
“What is it? See the light?” whispered Mike.
“No: I was trying to make out our course. The passage has wound off to the right, and we’re going east.”