“Then I’ll hail again. Oh, how I have hailed! Do you think they could hear me now the water’s up?”
“Perhaps,” said Aleck. “I heard you, and I’ve been hunting for long enough to find the way down.”
“What!” cried the middy, who was beginning to master the emotion from which he had suffered. “Then you didn’t know the way?”
“No, not till just now.”
“But you knew of this horrible cave?”
“No; though it isn’t above a mile from where I live.”
“I—I thought you were mixed up with these smugglers, and—and—I beg your pardon.”
“There’s nothing to beg pardon about,” said Aleck, cheerfully. “There, I’m going to have you out of this. Now, then, Eben, bring the light closer. Where did these fetters come from?”
“Out of a King’s ship as was wrecked off Black Point, Master Aleck. We got dozens out of the sands. They’re what they use when they put men in irons.”
“Nonsense.”