During many hours Dick had been solely preoccupied with the problem how to recross the chasm. Penwarden, the smugglers, even the destroyer of the bridge, were all forgotten. But now all the circumstances of his recent misadventure returned with full force to his mind. A run was to be attempted. The smugglers' hiding-place, which the revenue officers had sought in vain, must be somewhere near at hand, and the person, whosoever it was, that had flung the bridge down the shaft—for its fall could not have been accidental—had done so with the intention of forestalling interference.
Dick considered what he had better do. Should he make his way back to the well, in the hope of being able to climb it secretly and give warning to the officers? He reflected that it might be too late for that. Besides, his presence in these underground passages had been observed by some one early in the morning; that same person might still be lying in wait for him. As this idea occurred to him, he remembered that he had left his gun behind in the cave, and for an instant thought of returning for it; but a slight sound from the other direction made him hastily extinguish the candle, and advance cautiously along the passage; perhaps the bridge-destroyer was coming towards him.
In pitch darkness he stole along, scarcely conscious of the sharp edges and rough projections of the stone floor on which he trod. In a few minutes he saw a faint glimmer of reflected light ahead, the source of which was hidden from him by a bend in the passage. On reaching the bend, he descried, moving across the end of the gallery along a transverse one, a procession of men with candles in their hats, hurrying, at short intervals apart, from the direction of the well. Clinging to the wall, confident that in the black darkness he was wholly invisible, he crept forward. By the time he came within a few yards of the transverse passage, this, too, was in darkness, the last of the line having passed by.
He hastened to the corner, and peeped round to the right. The last man was entering the narrow tunnel, which he had noticed casually as he came by with Sam. The dimness of the flickering light, and the fact that the man's back was towards him, prevented him from forming any conclusion as to the identity of the individual. The light gradually dwindled, until the opening of the tunnel was quite indistinguishable.
Waiting for a moment or two, to listen and look along the passage leading to the well, Dick ventured to creep stealthily in the same direction as the men, and to penetrate into the tunnel. He had advanced in this but a few yards, when he was made to beat a hasty retreat by a faint but growing light at the further end, and the sound of heavy footsteps approaching. As quickly as possible he tiptoed back in the darkness, and regained his former station in the side gallery, where he stood eagerly watching. In a few moments a man crossed from right to left. His face was blackened; before and behind him hung a tub, exactly similar to those which Sam had lately broken up. A second man followed at a short interval, loaded in the same way; then a third, and so on, until twenty-two had passed. They seemed by their dress to be for the most part farm-hands, but the light from their candles was too dim to reveal them clearly.
The light diminished, the sound of footsteps died away, and Dick, emerging once more into the passage, saw the end of the procession on the way to the well. From the other direction there was no sound. Dick felt an overmastering curiosity to discover how the run was being worked, and whence the tubs were brought. He hastened to the tunnel, paused for a little at the entrance, straining his ears for the slightest sound of men returning, then went on.
After a few steps he heard a slight creaking from some point ahead. A glance behind assuring him that there was no present danger in this direction, he was emboldened to proceed. There was a sudden bend in the tunnel; at the far end he saw a light; and, hugging the wall as closely as possible, he crept forward until the scene beyond was clearly in view.
He found himself near the entrance to a small oblong chamber, perhaps twenty feet by sixteen, and scarcely eight feet high. The walls were shored up by thick balks of wood: the roof was supported by rough beams. The place was dimly illuminated by two lanterns standing on the top of a pile of barrels that reached within two feet of the roof. At the far end a man was working a windlass over a hole in the floor. Two barrels, slung on ropes, emerged from the depths, were unhooked by the man, and rolled against the wall on the other side of the chamber. A whiff of cold salt air struck gratefully on Dick's senses; the smugglers' mysterious hiding-place was clearly very near the sea.
Dick was watching the man lower the hooks into the space beneath when he was startled by the sound of footsteps at no great distance behind him. Looking back, he saw a glimmer of light. Regress was barred; in a few moments he would be discovered unless he could find a new place of concealment. There was no time for hesitation. The back of the man at the windlass was towards him; the tackle creaked as more tubs ascended. In the corner of the chamber to the right was the stack of barrels on which the lanterns stood. There appeared to be just squeezing space between them and the wall. With his heart in his mouth Dick stole across to them on tiptoe, and had barely gained their shelter when the man released the tubs which had just ascended, and added them to those that were arranged along the opposite wall.
As Dick was creeping between the barrels and the wall, his foot touched an obstacle, over which he almost stumbled. Fortunately, having no boots on, he made no sound. He stood still, panting, in desperate anxiety. In the urgency of the moment he had made for the first hiding-place that offered itself, without reflecting that the carriers were no doubt returning for these very barrels, and their removal must reveal him without a possibility of escape. A thrill shot through him as he felt a slight movement in the object at his feet, and he edged instinctively away from it, wondering what it could be. The light from the lanterns did not reach the floor; indeed, scarcely illuminated the space behind, they being closed in that direction.