"Now for the cave and what it contains!" cried Will, and started for the spot the gypsies had so lately occupied.
The girls and boys followed him, the former excited yet half fearful.
"Do you think we had better?" asked Amy, as Will pushed aside the curtain of foliage and peered inside. "It's getting dark, and besides the gypsies might come back. Please don't, Will."
"Do you mean to say that you girls want us to go home without seeing what is in there?" asked Frank incredulously. "It can't be done, Amy."
Nevertheless, the boys hesitated before the entrance to this mysterious hole. After all, it was getting dark and the very blackness of the place was forbidding.
"If we only had some matches," said Roy uncertainly. "It wouldn't do us much good to go stumbling around in the dark."
"And I presume Mrs. Irving is back and will be terribly worried," Mollie added, seizing upon the most effective argument she could think of. "She told us to be home before dark."
"Yes, and we can come here to-morrow, anyway," Amy added. "What do you think about it, Betty?"
"Well, I am just crazy to see what the gypsies left there," the Little Captain answered, "but I do think it's a little late now to begin exploring. It isn't as if this were our last day on the island."
"I think Betty is right, fellows." It was Roy who spoke. "Mrs. Irving left the girls in our care and she won't do it again in a hurry if we don't get them home pretty soon."