Burgo's Romance

by T. W. Speight

Accordingly the three of them presently set out for the tower by way of the underground passage. When they emerged from it into what might be termed the entrance-hall of the tower, where, it may be remembered, was the door by which admittance was gained from the outside, Burgo, having pointed out the gap in the wall made by Marchment's men, conducted his uncle and Dacia upstairs to the room which had served for his prison. Everything apparently was just as he had left it. One of the window-bars lay on the floor; the other, nearly filed through, was still in its place. The crockery, containing the remnants of the last meal Mrs. Sprowle had brought him, was still on the table. And there were the few poor sticks of furniture, and the oaken door with its sliding panel and broken lock. The eyes of Burgo and his wife met more than once. What memories the room and its contents brought back to them Sir Everard was intensely interested in everything.

Then they went back downstairs. But first Burgo pointed out another flight of stairs, which doubtless led to a room over the one he had occupied; but they left the exploration of that for another time.

"And now," said Burgo, when they were once more on the ground-floor, as he proceeded to light a hand-lamp he had brought with him, "I must ask you to follow me through this hole in the wall, which is at the head of a flight of steps leading down to a cavern open to the sea. There can be no reasonable doubt, as it seems to me, that the underground passage leading to the Keep and this other passage leading to the cavern were bricked up, and all traces of them as far as possible obliterated, at one and the same time; but by whom, and for what purpose, it would now be useless to inquire."

Having passed through the gap, Burgo led his uncle slowly and carefully down the steps--for since his illness Sir Everard had not been so active on his feet as he had been before it--while Dacia brought up the rear, till they came to the chamber of which mention has been already made as being hollowed out of the body of the cliff. But this chamber, as Burgo proceeded to prove to the others, was but the ante-room to another nearly twice as spacious. "I think," he said, as he held his lamp aloft, "that it is not difficult to guess as to the use this place was put to in bygone days. At all events, I can come to no other conclusion than that it was used as a storage place for smuggled goods."

"You axe right, my boy; it could have been intended for nothing else," said the baronet emphatically.

"In that case," remarked Dacia, "bearing in mind that this place had an opening into the tower, and that there was an underground passage from the latter to the Keep, it would almost seem as if the owners or tenants of the Keep, whoever they may have been, must themselves have been in the smuggling line of business."

"By Jove!" laughed the baronet, "you seem to have hit the right nail on the head, my dear. But I believe that in those days smuggling was regarded as a very venial offence, whether indulged in by gentle or simple. Probably, if we had lived a hundred years ago, we should have been tarred with the same brush ourselves."

Burgo now led the way down the remaining flight of steps which led directly into the cavern. The iron grille was still open as he had seen it last.

It had been night when Burgo was there before. It was now broad daylight outside, and the cavern was pervaded by a faint yellowish twilight which might be in part a reflection from the sandy floor. It widened out from a narrow mouth, but was neither very large nor very lofty, and probably its existence was due in part to Nature and in part to man's handiwork. It was nearly ebb tide, and from the mouth of the cavern to low-water mark there intervened a stretch of yellow shining sand. Noticing this, Sir Everard said: "The smugglers, if such they were, can hardly have considered their hiding-place a very secure one, seeing that whenever the tide was out it must have been open for any one to enter it from the beach."

"It seems to be so, but it was not so in reality, neither is it now," replied Burgo. "That beautiful, innocent looking stretch of beach on which the sun just now is shining its brightest, is neither more nor less than a treacherous quicksand which would inevitably engulf any one who might be rash enough to attempt to reach the cavern by way of it when the tide is out. Many a grim secret lies buried in its unfathomed depths."