“Ahoy, my lad! Ahoy!” and something else was cut off by the soft sucking splash of water again, while to make the lads’ position more painful in their efforts to reply, twice over they were conscious of the fact that when they replied with a shout their cries did not pass through the orifice, which the water had closed.
But the tide was ebbing steadily, and the tiny arc of the rocks which showed the way in was growing more open, so that at the end of a few minutes they heard plainly:
“Where’bouts are yer, my lad?”
“In here!” shouted Aleck, but only in face of a dull plosh.
Another minute and the question was repeated, but from whence the lads could hardly tell, for instead of coming from the cavern mouth the words seemed to come from far up the cavern, to be followed by another splash. It was quite half a minute before, taught by experience, Aleck shouted:
“Shut in here! Cave!”
There was another plosh, but they had proof soon after that the words had been heard, for the hail now came:
“Are yer ’live, my lad?”
“Ye-es,” cried Aleck. “Quite!” and then he could in his excitement hardly control a hysterical laugh at the absurdity of the question and answer.
“Thought yer was dead and gone, my lad,” came now, in company with a fainter splashing.