“Yes, you may laugh,” said Joe, thoughtfully, “but I’m sure Tom Dinass is playing some game.”
“Let’s go and play with him, then. Only make haste, because I must get back.”
Joe led the way cautiously off to their left, in and out among the stones and patches of furze and bramble, till they neared the edge of the cliff, when they went more and more cautiously, till a jagged piece of crag stood up, showing where the precipice began; and to the left of this was the rather perilous way by which an active man could get down to the mass of tumbled rocks at the cliff foot, and from there walk right out on the western point which sheltered the cove from the fierce wind and waves.
“All nonsense, Jolly,” whispered Gwyn after they had stood for a few moments gazing down at where the waves broke softly with a phosphorescent light. “I won’t go.”
But as the boy spoke there was a loud clink from far below, as if an iron bar had struck against a stone, and the lad’s heart began to beat hard with excitement.
Then all was silent again for nearly five minutes, and the darkness, the faint, pale, lambent light shed by the waves, and the silence, produced a strange shrinking sensation that was almost painful.
“Shall we go down?” said Joe, in a whisper.
“And break our necks? No, thank you. There, come back, he has only gone to set a line for conger.”
“Hist!” whispered Joe, for at that moment, plainly heard, there came up to where they stood a peculiar thumping sound, as of a mason working with a tamping-iron upon stone.
“Now,” whispered Joe. “What does he mean by that?”