'Curiosity, and,' said he, laughing, 'an inborn love of booty. I had read in my time a great deal of the old smugglers—of their shifts and ways—and knew that this and the adjacent coast contained many of their caves. I got a plan of this one from a man in your town, and entered it with a candle, and explored by candlelight; but the candle burnt out long ago. Idiot-like, I dreamt of run goods neglected, of hard specie in canvas, and tobacco in wood.'
'You never find such things,' said the girl, 'in our caves—the men were too cunning. They did not work for you or for me.'
'Pray what time is it?'
'About noon.'
'Lord! then I have been here since four o'clock yesterday afternoon!'
'It is time we got out,' she exclaimed. 'Did never a man pass below in so many hours?'
'Two shrimpers only did I see far out—aged, bowed shapes; and I could not have made myself heard.'
'Now hook your hand into this pleat,' said she, taking his hand and fixing his finger for him.
They walked in darkness. It never will be known how it happened—whether Miss Conway had, in that moment of excitement, failed to take a glance at the wall-star at the end, and turned with her companion into one of the long out-leading corridors, or whether she had absolutely forgotten her geography of the place in the blackness that was upon them, for she had never contemplated passing more than a few steps beyond the entrance to the cave. She grew sensible of her blunder when they arrived at the extremity of the cutting, which had, doubtless, other avenues forking out of it.