'I wouldn't take a guide, for my hopes denied me one; frankly and truthfully, commander, I had been told that some smugglers' booty lay in a branch tunnel of this hiding-place, and my intention was to look at it, and afterwards to take measures to secure it by passing it through the window.'
The commander's laugh had the sepulchral note of the Devil's Walk.
'We were famous smugglers in our time, sir,' said he; 'we did not leave our run goods, earned at the very risk of our lives, to be fetched and enjoyed by strangers to the gang.'
'Who told you of a treasure lurking in an English cliff?' asked Miss Conway.
'The master of a brigantine,' answered the captain, 'who knew your little creek or port well, and the whole of the smugglers who had thronged it, before the lawless lot discovered their diggings were of no use to them, and departed.'
'That's not so long ago either,' said the commander. 'It's not above four years since that, from these cliffs, I witnessed one of the most desperate actions I ever saw between a large smuggler cutter and a Government schooner. They made a running fight, then came to a stand with wrecked canvas and blazing guns. They fought with extravagant courage, sir; then the smuggler, with his scuppers running crimson, threw his sweeps over, and by heaven the schooner remained silent and active only in making good the mischief done her.'
'It is abominably hard,' said Ada, 'to kill men for smuggling. I like the price of smuggled tea.'
'And what tobacco, sir, tastes like the run stuff?' said the captain.
'Here's my home,' said the commander.
He pushed open a front garden-gate. The house lay in blackness, save that in one corner a square of window was dimly illuminated. No lights were visible beyond in the neighbourhood of the town. It was three o'clock in the morning, growing into four, and the vast dome of midnight fast and faster flashed with stars as the morning grew. The horizon vanished in blackness thrilling with the white of charging seas.