“Yes—enlarged,” said Mr Temple, letting the light play on the wet sides. “Here are the marks of the pick and hammer, looking pretty fresh still. But we shall gain nothing by going in there except wet jackets. How the water drips!”
For, as they listened, they could hear it musically trickling down, and in another part falling with a regular pat, pat, pat on the rocky floor.
“But where does the water go?” asked Dick. “It ran out of the other in a little stream.”
“Far behind us somewhere, I daresay,” replied his father. “Don’t you see how this floor upon which we stand has been covered with great pieces of rock that have fallen from above? All, Dick, since men worked here. Perhaps this place was worked as a mine a hundred years before the smugglers used the cave, and they have not been here, I should say, for two or three generations. Now let’s get out into daylight once more. You would not be scared again about entering a dark cave, eh, Dick?”
“No, father—Oh! the light!”
“I’m glad of that,” replied Mr Temple, “for the lamp has gone out. The wick was too small,” he added, “and it has slipped through into the oil.”
“A mussy me!” groaned Josh. “And in this gashly place!”
“Now, then, who’ll lead the way out?” said Mr Temple sharply.
“Let me,” cried Dick.
“Go on then, my boy. There’s nothing to be afraid of but broken shins. No. Let Will guide, or—pooh! what nonsense! there’s the light. We shall almost be able to see as soon as our eyes grow accustomed to the place.”