“Nowheres,” whispered Hardock, and in spite of the bright sunshine around them he kept on nervously glancing here and there.
“Why, if you go on like that in the middle of the day, Sam,” cried the boy, angrily, “what would you do if it was dark?”
“Dark! You don’t know a man in Ydoll Cove as would come up here after dark, my lad. It would be more than his life was worth, he’d tell you. Why, there’s not only them in the old mine, but the cliffs swarm with them things as goes raging about whenever there’s a storm. I never used to believe in them, but I do now.”
“And I don’t,” said Joe, “and you won’t frighten me. It’s poor old Gwyn we heard shouting, and there must be an opening somewhere down into the mine.”
“Wheer is it, then?” whispered the man. “You’ve been all over here times enough, and so have I, but I never found no hole ’cept the one big one down.”
“No, I never saw one, but there must be. There!” For a faint hail came again from the wall of rock behind them.
“Gwyn, ahoy!” cried Joe as loudly as he could.
“Ahoy!” came back steadily.
“Why, it’s an echo,” cried Joe, excitedly. “Ahoy! Ahoy!”
“Oy—oy!” came back from the wall, and directly after, much more faintly—“Oy—help!”