'Shut up!' exclaimed Alan, impatiently. 'We are not drowned yet, and we are not going to be. You are frightening Estelle with your noise. It is all right, Estelle. Don't you be afraid. I can get the boat back all right with Marjorie's help if Thomas is not here in time. But there is no danger for an hour yet.'
'All the same, we had better find Thomas,' said Marjorie.
Neither she nor Alan had any serious belief in there being much mystery about Thomas's movements. They liked to imagine themselves in romantic positions, and were fond of weaving stories about any little event that attracted them. But the gardener's sudden disappearance, together with what Marjorie had seen in the cave, did seem strange.
'There's only one way of finding him,' remarked Alan, after he and Marjorie had stared at each other in silence for some moments. 'You see, he is nowhere in the cave. Now, what do you think has become of him?'
'Do you mean he has found a way up the cliff?' she asked, slowly, with what Alan called 'the pondering look' in her eyes. 'I wonder if he wanted to go into the woods when you saw him in the Wilderness, and if—if he has managed to get there now?'
'I never thought of that,' exclaimed Alan.
'If he has,' went on Marjorie, while Estelle and Georgie watched Alan anxiously, 'what do you mean by "only one way of finding him?"'
'Well,' returned Alan, hesitating as if his mind were not quite made up, 'we know of no path up, so there is nothing for it except to climb the cliff. I am sure I can do it, and who knows what I may find out?'
This proposal did not meet with favour from anybody. Marjorie declared it was impossible, and too dangerous to try—the cliff was far too steep. Alan and she could manage the boat quite well on a calm day. It would be less of a risk.
Estelle suggested they should go as far into the cave as possible—for Alan had told her that the end of it was above high-water mark—and remain there till the tide went down. It would certainly be very horrid, but it was better than going alone in the boat, or Alan trying to climb those terrible cliffs.