"Lewis! Lewis!" I shouted in despair, "tell them to make room! We won't betray you!"
The smuggler heard my cry, and paused with his foot already on the first step of the descent.
"It's no good, Master Eden," he said, in a low, thick utterance. "If I put you in the boat they'll throw you out. You're all right—I'll tell Master Miles; or if not, you'll find it yourself if you look about. I'm the only one as knows—"
The words, which I regarded merely as the rambling nonsense spoken by a drunkard, were cut short by the speaker being forcibly dragged down into the boat, which an instant later shoved off from the platform.
Deserted.
In an agony of despair we heard it receding farther and farther in the gloom, the hoarse shouts and laughter of the men and the continuous barking of the dog, which had sprung aboard at the last moment, echoing strangely from the arched roof. A few moments later we saw the dark outline of the overladen craft obscuring the semicircle of light as it reached the mouth of the cavern, and at the same time the drunken clamour seemed to end in one final yell.
The men were gone, and George and I were left to our fate, at the mercy of wind and sea.