“But I still can’t see how the smugglers could run a boat up and row into that cavern.”
“Course they couldn’t row, sir,” replied Tom, “on’y shove her in. But don’t you see what a beautiful deep cut there is? Bound to say that at the right time they’d run a big lugger close in. Look yonder! It’s just like the way into a dock, and sheltered lovely. Ah, they’re an artful lot, smugglers! You never know what they’re after.”
It was about an hour later that, without passing a soul on their solitary way, the party reached the cliff path down into the Den garden, where no Dunning was visible, and a chill came over Aleck like a warning of something fresh in the way of disaster that he was to encounter.
It came suddenly, but it was as suddenly chased away by his hearing the voice of Jane crooning over the words of some doleful old West Country ballad, not of a cheering nature certainly, but sufficient to prove that someone was at the house.
“Wait here,” he whispered to his companions. “Let me go and see my uncle first.”
He crept in unheard, glanced round to see that the lower room was empty, and then went softly up the stairs, his well-soaked boots making as little noise as if they had been of indiarubber.
The study door yielded to a touch, and he stood gazing at the figure of his uncle, seated in his usual place, but with pen, ink and papers thrust aside so that he could bow his grey head down upon his clasped hands.
“Asleep, uncle?” said the lad, softly.
“Aleck, my boy!” cried the old man, springing up to catch the lost one in his arms. “Heaven be thanked! I was mourning for you as dead.”