“You can’t row against a current like this,” said Vince quietly; “and if anybody had been in there they would have been awake and seen us long before this.”
“Then I don’t believe this is the cove, and that can’t be our cavern,” cried Mike sharply.
“Very well; but you soon will. Now look: here we go. I say, how smooth the walls of rock are worn by the water!—that accounts for our never having been upset in the night. We shall see the big cave directly. Shall we try and land?”
“Yes; no; I don’t know what will be best to do. Yes; but let’s make sure first.”
“And land when we come round again?” said Vince.
“Yes, if you like. I don’t know what to say.”
“Seems best way,” said Vince thoughtfully. “And yet I don’t know. We might hide, for they’ve blocked up the passage; but they’d hunt us out, as we couldn’t keep hidden very long. And they’d know we were there, because they’d find the boat.”
“Perhaps they’d think we were drowned,” said Mike; and then, excitedly, “Why, it is the big cavern, Cinder!”
“Yes, it’s the big cavern, sure enough; and if it wasn’t so dark inside we could see the stack of kegs.”
There was no room for further doubt, as they glided by the mouth of the great opening, with its wonderful beach of soft sand, and directly after began to recognise the piled-up masses of rock. As they went on, they saw the outlying masses round which the waters foamed and bubbled, but became quite bewildered as they tried to make out which was the outlet by which the smuggler crew had taken them and the captain through on the previous day. They passed narrow rifts, but the water always seemed to be flowing swiftly into the great basin in which they were and joining the seething waters in their continuous round.