“I’m not sure yet,” he said; “but I begin to think I would. That narrow passage would look wider when you were right in it, and the way to do it would be to come in when the tide was high,—there wouldn’t be so much rushing and tumbling about of the water then; and the way to get out again would be at high water too.”
“But that would mean staying till the tide had gone down and come up again—hours and hours.”
“Yes,” said Vince, “that would be the way; but it would want ever so much thinking about first.”
“Yes,” replied Mike; “it would want ever so much thinking about first. Ready to go back?”
“May as well,” said Vince; and he stepped down, after a farewell look down at the sheltered cove, fully realising the fact that any one passing it a short distance from the shore would take the barrier of rocks which shut it in for the continuation of the cliffs on either side; and as the place had a terrible reputation for dangerous reefs and currents, in addition to the superstitious inventions of the people of the Crag, it seemed highly probable that it had never been approached unless by the unfortunate crew of some doomed vessel which had been battered to pieces and sunk unseen and unheard.
“Shall I go first?” said Vince.
“Yes: you lead.”
“Mean to go along among the bushes at the bottom, or would you like to slope down at once?”
“Oh, we’ll go back the way we said, only we shan’t have done as much as we promised ourselves.”
Vince started off down the slope, and upon reaching the trough-like depression at the bottom he began to work his way in and out among the fallen blocks, leaping the hollows wherever there was safe landing on the other side. At times he had to stop to extricate himself from the brambles, but on the whole he got along pretty well till their way was barred by a deeper rift than they had yet encountered, out of which the brambles and ferns grew luxuriantly.