'Well done for you,' said Allan approvingly; 'it's your first climb of the kind, and you haven't shown an atom of funk.'
Gerald's cheeks became a little redder, and Harry bore himself with greater self-consciousness.
'Only Hamish now,' said Allan, looking up at the cliff; 'how cautiously the old fellow is coming down; he has the steadiest head of the lot of us although he is so slow.'
'"Sleepy Hamish,"' remarked Harry to Gerald in an aside, repeating a nickname which he had heard Allan use. Low as the words were spoken, Marjorie heard them, and turned upon the boy like a flash.
'Some people have more in them than they make a show of,' she said. 'Perhaps you don't understand that kind of thing, though.'
Harry did not chance to have a reply ready, but he observed to Reggie afterwards that it was a pity Marjorie seemed to be a quick-tempered kind of a girl.
'Here we are,' said Allan, pausing beneath a great overhanging archway, and speaking loudly so as to be heard above the din; for the waves and the clamouring of the birds made a noise which was almost deafening.
'Can we go in?' asked Gerald.
'Of course we can. There's no danger except in a westerly gale. It's dark after you get in a little way.'
The young people scrambled and slipped over the sea-weed at the mouth of the cave, and presently found themselves standing on a floor of light-coloured sand, strewn with shells and sea-drift. The sides of the cave were black and shiny with wet, and water dripped slowly from the roof.