He wondered vaguely why Nina broke in on her sister’s quaint theorizing. Any nonsense which took their minds off the troubles of the hour was a good thing in itself.
They scrambled and slithered through the passage, which resembled the moraine of a glacier, save that the rocks were on the same plane, and the central stream was clear and greenish instead of being nearly milk white. Once they were held up fully fifteen minutes because the channel ran close to an overhanging rock which really looked as though it might be brought down by the disturbance of a pebble.
Then Maseden was moved to make investigations, and discovered that the main waterway was extraordinarily deep. In other words, the sea had preferred to scoop out a ditch rather than flow through the ample space bordering Hanover Island. Even at low tide there was deep water here.
“We must go on, one at a time,” he said, and led the way.
He found that Nina Forbes was close behind.
“Remain where you are!” he said gruffly. “I’ll tell you when to follow and indicate the best track.”
She frowned, and her eyes sparkled, but she obeyed. Sturgess, too, growled a protest.
“He ought to give me that kind of try-out,” he said. “If there’s trouble, and I go under, it won’t matter so much. But you girls can’t spare Alec. He’s worth twenty of me when it comes to a show-down.”
However, they all crossed the danger point safely, and each in turn noticed that which Maseden alone had been able to see at first—that a huge buttress had fallen quite recently, probably during the preceding tide, so the whole mass might crumble into ruin at any moment. As was their way, once a danger had passed they did not discuss it again. Sturgess, of course, had something to say, though it only bore inferentially on this latest risk.