“I dunno! Must have given us the slip somehow. If he isn’t here, he must be somewhere else. No getting round that.”
He shouted the news to the watchers on the banks; and a confused sound of argument rose from amongst the sedge.
“Not much use hanging round the old home, Frankie. Pull for shore, sailor. We’d best manhandle her along the face of the cliff. I’ve had enough of that paddling.”
When they touched firm ground again they were surrounded by their friends, most of whom seemed to doubt whether the search of the cave had been properly carried out.
“I tell you,” declaimed the exasperated Michael, “I got right into the damned hole! It’s so small that I nearly broke my nose against the back wall as I heaved myself inside. It would have been a tight fit for me and a squirrel together. He’s not there, whether you like it or not. . . . I can’t help your troubles, Tommy; you can go and look for yourself, if you like the job of lying on your tummy on a raft that’s awash. I shan’t interfere with your simple pleasures.”
“But . . .”
“We’ve lost him. Is that plain enough? There’s nothing to be done but go home again with our tails between our legs. I’m going now.”
He accompanied his friends to the top of the cliff again; but when he reached the terrace a fresh thought struck him, and he loitered behind while the others, soaked and disconsolate, made their way down into the pine-wood. When the last of them had disappeared, Michael retraced his steps to the edge of the cliff.
“He reached here all right,” he assured himself. “And he didn’t break back through the cordon.”
He stooped down, picked up the rope, and refastened it round one of the pillars of the balustrade.