“There, don’t cry,” said the middy, more gently. “We shall make an honest man of him.”
“And what’s to become of my poor weans, Master Aleck? We shall all be turned out of the cottage.”
“I don’t think you will,” said Aleck. “I daresay uncle won’t let anyone interfere with you.”
There were busy days during the next week, with men from the sloop and cutter, brought back by the middy’s “despatch,” going up and down the zigzag like so many ants, bringing up the principal treasures of the cave, the sailors working with all their might over the greatest haul they had ever made, and chuckling over the amount of prize money they would have to draw.
There was a fair amount of work done and much recovering of valuable gear during two days of the next spring tide, when Aleck and his companion were rowed in one of the sloop’s boats along a narrow channel of deep water right up the cavern. They were poled in, and found so much to interest them that they stayed too long and were nearly shut in once more, for the tide rose fast, and the men had to lie down in the boat and work her out with their hands, and then a wave came in and lifted her, jamming the gunwale against the slimy rock and weeds, threatening a more terrible imprisonment still; but just as matters were very serious and the lives of the party in imminent danger, the water sank a few inches and enabled the men to thrust the boat on into daylight.
That was the last time a boat entered that cave, for during a terrific storm in the ensuing winter the waves must have loosened and torn up some of the supporting stones of the archway, letting down hundreds of tons of rock in a land slide, so that where the cave had lain like a secret, the waves played regularly at high water, working more and more at every tide to lay bare the gloomy recesses to the light of day.
Aleck saw no more of Willie Wrighton, midshipman, for two years, and then he came on a visit to the Den.
The next morning the two young men went for a stroll along the cliffs to have a look at the rocky chaos which had once formed the cave.