“Yes, Billy, we must get some shelter for the night. But let’s try one more shout.”
The little sailor protested, but Mark raised his voice as loudly as he could in a stentorian “Ahoy!” and as if the occupants of the forest had kept close upon their heels there came the same sneering laugh, and the hoarse croaking cry from among the trees.
“There! see what you’ve done!” groaned Billy. “Who’s to go to sleep anywhere near here if they’re arter us?”
“Nonsense!” cried Mark. “They’ll go to roost directly, and we sha’n’t hear them again.”
“Roost! Nay, lad, that sort o’ thing never roosts. Let’s get on.”
“Get on! why, it will be dark directly, and we shall be falling down some precipice, or getting into one of those horrible bogs. We must get some shelter where we can.”
There seemed to be no difficulty about that, for a few feet up the face of the rock, and where it could easily be reached, there was a depression which looked as if two huge blocks of stone had fallen together, one leaning against the other, and as, after a great deal of persuasion, Billy Widgeon climbed up to it with his companion, they found this really to be the case, save that instead of its being two blocks of stone it was two beds of strata lying together, in such a position that they formed a cavern some ten-feet high and as many wide, and with a peculiarly ribbed and cracked floor.
It was rapidly growing too dark to see of what this floor was composed, the gloom being quite deep as soon as they were inside. Neither could they explore the interior, though it seemed to form a passage going in for some distance; but a careful searching of the floor and the neighbourhood of the entrance failed to show them the slightest trace of animal occupation.
“But it’s very risky work, Mr Mark, sir, coming and settling down in a rat’s hole of a place like this.”
“My dear Billy, if you can show me a better place, one where we shall be in shelter from the rain and the heavy dew, I shall be glad to go to it. I don’t like sleeping on stone floors.”