'Father, this is Captain Jackman. I was passing along the sands yesterday morning——'

'So! Yesterday morning! How many yesterday mornings do you mean?' groaned the commander.

'When,' continued the girl, 'I heard this gentleman crying for help out through that hole there. I came on to the green and got between the rails, and managed to lift the stone and descended. We forgot ourselves in talk; we lost ourselves in deviating from right to left. When we came to this place it was in total blackness; the stone was on, and we were entombed.'

'Let's get on deck,' said Commander Conway.

They passed up through the trap, five of them, lighting the land for a mile around. How gloriously sweet and fresh and boundless was the night! The piece of silver moon shone over the sea and shed a little light upon the earth. The stars sparkled, and the white clouds floated with a majesty that befitted their domain. Ada passed her hand through her father's arm on rising out of the earth, and exclaimed—

'Who could have put the hatch down upon me, father? There was no man in sight when I went to let Captain Jackman out.'

'He was that fellow Goldsmith,' answered the commander. 'He is one of the torch-bearers. He instantly came to apprise me, on recollecting. He said he fell asleep after walking from Spenpoor, just past a brow of land where you couldn't see him. No sooner had you gone down than he must have got up, and finding the cover off, put it on, according to the custom of these rogues.'

'The wretch,' cried the girl, turning and straining her eyes at the three men in their rear. 'Couldn't you have guessed, you savage, by sign of that stone being off,' she shouted at Goldsmith, 'that there must be people in the caves below?'

'I vow to Peter, then,' cried Goldsmith, waving his torch furiously so that the figures of the people came and went in a cannibal dance of glow, 'that I thought it was some wicked trick of a boy, or that it had been forgotten, and so I put it on again. God forgive me.'

'Who are you?' said Captain Jackman, addressing the other torch-bearer.