“Going to row close in?” said Leslie, scanning the weird, forbidding place rather anxiously.
“Going to row right in,” said Harry, with a contemptuous smile. “Not afraid, are you?”
“Can’t say,” replied Leslie. “A little perhaps. The place does not look tempting. Do you think it is safe to go in?”
“Like to land on the rock till we come back?” said Harry, instead of answering the question.
“No,” said Leslie quietly; “but do you think it wise to row in there?”
“You’re not afraid, are you, girls?”
“I always feel nervous till we are outside again,” said Louise quietly.
“But you will be very careful, Harry,” said Madelaine.
“Think I want to drown myself?” he said bitterly. “I might just as well, p’raps, as go back to that dismal office in London, to slave from morning till night.”
He rested upon his oars for a minute or two, and perhaps from the reflection of the masses of ferns which fringed the arch of the cavern, and which were repeated in the clear waters, Victor Pradelle’s face seemed to turn of a sickly green, while one hand grasped the edge of the boat with spasmodic force.