“Ay, ’tis, sir. Smart lad as ever I see.”
“Where do you think he can be?”
“Carried out by the tide, I should say, sir.”
“Oh! Horrible! Then you don’t think the smugglers can have taken him prisoner?”
“Tchah! What could they do with prisoners, Master Aleck? May have given him a crack on the head and knocked him into the water. Easy done in a scrimmage, and nobody none the wiser.”
“But mightn’t he be hid in the smugglers’ cave?”
“Well, he might be, sir, if there is one. If he is he’s shut up tight and they’ve took away them as knows how to get in.”
“Yes,” said Aleck, as they reached the garden and caught sight of the gardener watching them. “I say, Tom, there must be a big cavern somewhere.”
“Very like, sir.”
“You don’t know where it is?”