“Of course. Your fellow officer came straight to our place to search it, thinking we knew where you were. Well, uncle will be very glad. Come along. I shall take the lanthorn with us to see our way up the zigzag. I think I could manage in the dark, as I came down and know something of the place, but it would be awkward for you.”
“Oh, yes; let’s have all the light we can,” said the midshipman. “I’m quite ready. Shall we start?”
“Yes, come on,” was the reply, and, holding the lanthorn well down, Aleck led the way along by the waterside till the rocks which had acted as stepping-stones were reached, and which were now quite bare.
These were passed in safety, but not without two or three slips; and then after a walk back towards the twilight, somewhere about equal to the distance they had come, Aleck struck off up a slope and in and out among the blocks that had fallen from the roof to where he easily found the lowest slope of the zigzag, which they prepared to mount, the light from the lanthorn showing the nicks cut in the stone at the side.
“It’s much harder work climbing up than sliding down,” said Aleck.
“Of course,” replied the midshipman, who toiled on steadily in the rear; “but it’s very glorious to have one’s leg free, and to know that before long one will be up in the glorious light of day. I say, are you counting how many of these slopes we have come up?”
“No,” said Aleck, “I lost count; but I think we must be half way up.”
“Bravo! But, I say, these smugglers are no fools. Who’d ever expect to find such a place as this? It must have taken them years to make.”
“They were making it or improving it for years,” said Aleck; “but they found the crack already made—it was natural.”
“Think so?”