“Well, once we turned ’em over an’ there weren’t any,” Douglas the literal reminded him.
William’s faith, however, was not to be lightly shaken.
“Oh, they sort of dart about,” he explained vaguely, “by the time you’ve turned up one stone to see if they’re there they’ve darted off to the next an’ when you turn over the next they’ve darted back to the first without you seein’ ’em, but they’re there all the time really. I bet they are. An’ I bet I catch a great big whopper—a salmon or somethin’—this afternoon.”
“Huh!” said Ginger, “I’ll give you sixpence if you catch a salmon.”
“A’ right,” said William hopefully, “an’ don’t you forget. Don’t start pretendin’ you said tuppence same as you did about me seein’ the water rat.”
This started a heated argument which lasted till they reached what was known locally as the cave.
The cave lay just outside the village and was believed by some people to be natural and by others to be part of old excavations.
The Outlaws believed it to be the present haunt of smugglers. They believed that smugglers held nightly meetings there. The fact of its distance from the sea did not shake their faith in this theory. As William said, “I bet they have their meetin’s here ’cause folk won’t suspect ’em of bein’ here. Folks keep on the look out for ’em by the sea an’ they trick ’em by comin’ out here an’ havin’ their meetin’s here where nobody’s on the look out for ’em.”
For the hundredth time they explored the cave, hoping to find some proofs of the smugglers’ visits in the shape of a forgotten bottle of rum or one of the lurid handkerchiefs which they knew to be the correct smuggler’s headgear, or even a piece of paper containing a note of the smugglers’ latest exploit or a map of the district. For the hundredth time they searched in vain and ended by gazing up at a small slit in the rock just above their heads. They had noticed it before but had not given it serious consideration. Now William gazed at it frowningly and said, “I bet I could get through that and I bet that it leads down a passage an’ that,” his imagination as ever running away with him, “an’ that at the end of a passage there’s a big place where they hold their meetin’s an’ I bet they’re there now—all of ’em—holdin’ a meetin’.”
He stood on tiptoe and put his ear to the aperture. “Yes,” he said, “I b’lieve I can hear ’em talkin’.”