There had been no hesitation on the part of the prisoners. Aleck sprang in as soon as their guide was a few feet away, and the middy followed, both finding their task delightfully easy as they swam some fifty yards through a low tunnel, whose roof was for the most part so close to the surface that more than once, as the smooth water heaved, Aleck’s face just touched the impending smoothly-worn stone.
But there were two places, only a few yards in, where the arch was broken into a yawning crack, from which the water dripped in a heavy shower.
“Look up as you come along here,” cried Aleck to his companion, and then he shuddered, for his voice raised a peculiar echo, suggesting weird hollows and tunnels, while as he increased his strokes to get past and the middy came under in turn, he shouted again after his leader:
“Why, Tom, that must be where the water snatched us up and nearly drowned us.”
Five minutes later all three were swimming for a rough natural pier, and Tom Bodger gave his head a sidewise wag towards another low cavernous arch.
“’Nother way in there,” he said. “Jynes the one we came out of. You must have seen how the waves dance and splash there in rough weather, Master Aleck?”
“No,” was the reply. “I’ve only seen that it’s a terribly rough bit of coast. I never came down here, and of course I was never out in my boat when it was rough.”
“Course not, sir. It is a coarse bit. I had no end of a job to get down, and I spect that it’s going to be a bit worse going up agen. What do you say to sitting up yonder in the sunshine on that there shelf? The birds’ll soon go. You can make yourselves comf’able and get dry while I go up and get a rope. Dessay I can be back in an hour or so.”
“No,” cried the lads, in a breath. “We’ll climb it if you can.”
Climb up the dangerous cliff they did by helping one another, and with several halts to look down at the still falling tide; and in one of these intervals Aleck exclaimed: