"Handsomely done! Now straight for the entrance of the water-cave, and ho for the isle of Fiara!" cried Wat, who began with every stroke to feel himself drawing clear of the multiplied dangers of the night. Yet the most difficult part of the passage was still to come.
All the while Kate sat silent and watchful in the stern. Wat and Scarlett were at the oars. Scarlett used the unconscious Jan for an excellent stretcher as he laid himself to his work. So strong was the north current even there that they had to pull hard for a moment or two lest they should be carried past the goë which formed the entrance to the water-cavern through which they must pass to their city of refuge.
"There!" at last cried Wat, indicating the dark break in the cliff-line with a certain pride, as they came almost level with the mouth of the passage, and saw vast sombre walls rising solemnly on either side of that black lane of sea-water, sown with phosphorescent sparks, which stretched before them.
Presently they were shut within, as it had been by the turning of a wrist. The stars went out above. The waters slept. The air was still as in a chamber. The soughing roar of the Suck of Suliscanna died down to a whisper and then was heard no more.
"Stand up, Jack, and paddle for your life!" commanded Wat. He had often enough crossed Loch Ken in this manner, after having read Captain John Smith's Adventures in Virginia with profit and pleasure.
"'Fore the prince!" cried Scarlett, indignantly; "I had just learned one way of it, sitting with my nose to the rear-guard, which as soon as I can make shift to do without the oar taking me in the stomach—lo, I am sharply turned about and bidden begin all over again with my face to the line of advance!"
"Stop talking—get up and do it!" cried Wat, impatiently; "grumble when we get through. This is no sham fight on the common of Amersfort with the white-capped young frows sitting on benches at their knitting."
Obediently Scarlett rose, grasped his oar short in his hands, and imitated as best he could in the darkness Wat's long sweeping stroke past the side of the boat, as he stood and conned the passage from the stem.
The tunnel seemed long to Wat, who had formerly swum it swiftly enough with thoughts of Kate singing in his head. The dark dripping walls on either side of them stretched on interminably. Ever a denser dark seemed to envelop them. The gloom and weight of rocks above them shut them in. They had dived, as it seemed, into the very earth-bowels as soon as ever the boat swam noiselessly into the arched blackness of the water-cavern.
"Now take your oar by the middle and stand by to push off if we come too near to the rocks on either side," commanded Wat, from the prow.