Not to try our reader’s patience as sorely as Jameson tried that of his auditors, we will put his narrative in brief form. In exploring the abandoned passages of the mine workings, he one day came upon a flight of steps cut in the rock. He followed them up and found that they led from the summit of the cliff down into the interior of one of the big basalt caves. The mouth of the cave was large, for he could see the gleam of green water framed by the black rock, but the free space above the entrance was hardly large enough to admit a rowboat at high tide. Being naturally of a curious disposition, he made soundings and found that the water in the cave was very deep, as deep as it was outside, in fact.
“I’m no guessin’ what the old Spaniards used the cave for,” he concluded; “to drown slaves that had been cantankerous, maybe—I’ve heard o’ such things. But we can use it to a better purpose the night—to save human lives.”
“I confess I don’t quite understand,” said Mr. Chadwick.
“Hoot, mon, ye fash me. This bit boat is a divin’ boat, is she nae?”
“She surely is,” spoke up Jack.
“Weel, then, you run doon the coast to the barracks above Santiago, pack your soldier laddies in this cabin when you get to the cave mouth, and then dive into it.”
“Jove, Jameson man, I see your plan!” cried Mr. Chadwick excitedly. “You mean to get the soldiers inside the cave and then rush them into the stockade by means of the secret stairway.”
“Preecisely.”
“Then let’s start at once. Dancer, you think the plan is feasible?”
“If there is sufficient water,” was the reply.