“And I’d take it kindly, Master Raystoke, sir,” said the man the midshipman had gripped, “if nex’ time, sir, you wouldn’t mind grappling my clothes only. You’re tidy strong now, and I can’t ‘answer for my flesh’, if you take hold like that.”
“Hush! No talking,” said the master. “Dick, take the outside now, and be careful. Form your line again. Bob Harris, take the far left.”
“Well, Master Raystoke, sir,” grumbled Dick, “I call that giving a fellow a prize. Saves that chap, and here am I.”
“Post of honour, Dick. Go slowly, and not too near.”
“Not too nigh it is, sir,” said Dick, with a sigh; and a minute later the word was given, and they went on once more.
One hundred, two hundred, three hundred yards, but no sign.
Then a discovery was made, and by the midshipman.
They had come to the descent on the far side of the vast hill by whose top they had been searching. There was a stiff slope beyond, and another mass of cliff loomed up, rising dimly against the sky, in a way that made Archy feel certain that, though so far their search had been in vain, they had now before them the huge cliff which held the smugglers’ store.
The midshipman felt so assured of this, that he whispered his belief freely to Gurr, as he encountered him from time to time perambulating the line of men, but the old master received the communication rather surlily.
“All guess-work, my lad,” he said. “We’re working wrong way on. These great places would puzzle a monkey, and we shan’t find the hole unless we come by daylight, and leave a boat off-shore to signal to us till we get over the spot.”