It must, I say, have been for nearly three hours that the busy scene lasted, and a large body of men kept on plashing to and fro with loads from the vessel to the cavern and back empty-handed. Everything seemed to be done as quietly as if the men were well accustomed to the task.

Not a word was spoken, except by one who seemed to be leader, and the only sounds we heard were the tramping upon the slate-sprinkled sand and the splashing as they waded in to reach the vessel's side.

It was evident enough that they were landing quite a store of something of another from the vessel, and I knew enough of such matters to be sure that it was a smuggler running a cargo. For the first few minutes I felt that it must be the French coming to take us unawares; but the French would have landed men, not packages and little barrels.

It was a smuggler sure enough, and hence my father's strict order to be silent, for the smugglers had not a very good character in our parts, and ugly tales were told of how they had not scrupled to kill people who had interfered with them when busy over their dangerous work.

I was watching them eagerly, when, all at once, I turned cold and shivered, for it had suddenly struck me that old Jonas was away with his lugger, and that this must be it landing its cargo, while all the time, so close to me that I could have stretched out my hand and touched him, there lay my school-fellow--the old smuggler's son.

"He must suspect him," I said to myself; and then, "What must he feel?"

And all the while there below us was the busy scene--the men coming and going and the cargo being landed, till all at once there was a cessation. Those who returned from the cave stayed about the vessel, and seemed, as far as we could make out, to be climbing on board, and as I suddenly seemed to be making out their figures a little more clearly, my father whispered, "Lie down, boys, or you will be seen. The day is beginning to dawn."

We obeyed him silently, and lay watching, seeing every minute more clearly that the dark-looking vessel, which loomed up very big, was being thrust out with long oars, and beginning to glide slowly away in a thick mist which hung over the sea a hundred yards or so from sh.o.r.e.

Then as it reached and began to fade, as it were, into the mist, first one then another dark patch rose from the deck.

"Hoisting sail," I said to myself. "Two big lug-sails. It is the _Saucy La.s.s_--old Jonas's lugger, and it looks big through the fog."

Just then in the coming grey dawn I saw another patch rise up, following a creaking noise, and I could make out that it was a third sail, when I knew that it could not be the _Saucy La.s.s_, but must be a stranger.

I was so glad, for Bigley's sake, that my heart gave quite a heavy throb; and, unless I was very much deceived, I heard my father draw a long breath like a sigh of relief.

As we gazed at the sails and the dark hull in the increasing light, everything looked so strange and indistinct that it seemed impossible for it all to be real. The sails began to fill, and the vessel glided silently away without a voice on board being heard, till it was so far-off that my father said:

"I think we may begin to talk, my lads, now."

"I say, sir," cried Bob excitedly, "weren't those smugglers?"

"I cannot say," replied my father coldly.

"Let's get down now and look," said Bob.

"I think," said my father, "that we had better leave everything alone, and, as soon as the tide will allow us, get home to breakfast. You, Bob Chowne, if I were you, I should keep my own counsel about this, and you too, Sep."

I noticed that he did not say anything to Bigley, who was kneeling down gazing after the vessel in the mist which was dying away about the land, and appeared to be going off with the vessel, surrounding it and trying to hide it from those on sh.o.r.e, as with the faint breeze and the swift tide it glided rapidly away.

Soon after there was a warm glow high up in the east. Then hundreds of tiny clouds began to fleck the sky with orange, the sea became glorious with gold and blue, the sun peeped above the edge, and it was day once more, with the vessel a couple of miles away going due west.

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

DOING ONE'S DUTY.

We did not have to stay very long before we descended. My father said it would be better to stop, and while we were waiting Bob Chowne asked whether we were going to search the cave and see what was there.

"No!" said my father in very decisive tones.

"But you said something about us lads exploring it, sir, yesterday--I mean last night."

"Yes, my lad, I did," replied my father so sternly that Bob Chowne was quite silenced; "but I have changed my mind."

I noticed that he still did not say anything to Bigley, and that my old school-fellow was very silent, in fact we were none of us in a conversational frame of mind, but every now and then the idea kept creeping in that old Jonas must know about that cave, and the purpose for which it was used; and then I seemed to understand my father's thoughtful manner, for it was as though this discovery was likely to widen the breach between them.

In about an hour's time my father proposed that we should climb down, and feeling very stiff and cold we began to descend.

I went first, lowering myself from ledge to ledge, with my father lying down and holding my hands, and then following me, though really it was not very difficult, for we boys had been up and down far more dangerous places after gulls' eggs in our earlier days.

But, though we could go down in the bay, we could not get out of it as yet, for the tide was some distance up the point we wanted to pa.s.s. The eastern one was clear, and we could have gone that way, and, after two miles' walk and scramble along the beach, have found a place where we could climb up, but that was not our object, and we waited about looking at the falling tide, and watching the rapidly disappearing three masts of the lugger. Then, too, we noted the tracks on the beach, some of which were quite plain, but they did not show higher up by the cavern, and we knew that they would all disappear with, the next tide.

The temptation was very strong to go in and explore the place, but neither Bob nor I hinted at it, and Bigley was exceedingly quiet and dull. In fact he went away from us after a time and sat down on the top of a rock close to the eastern point, a rock to which he had to leap, for it was still in the water, and there he sat waiting till he could get to another and another, and at last waved his hand to us, when we followed him and got round on to the sh.o.r.e on the other side.

It was no easy task even there, for the beach was terribly enc.u.mbered with rocks, but by creeping in and out, and by dint of some climbing, we managed to get along, and at last reached the Gap just as Doctor Chowne was about setting off back to get a boat at Ripplemouth and come in search of us, after having been up all night waiting for Bob's return, and then riding over to the Bay to hear from Kicksey that we had not been back, and then on to the Gap, to find that we had all gone out in Jonas Uggleston's boat, and not been heard of since.

"Well," said the doctor, after hearing a part of our adventure, "I suppose I must not thank Bob for this job, eh, Duncan? It was your fault, you see. My word, sir, you did give me a fright."

"I'll take all the blame, Chowne," said my father; "but let me tell Mrs Bonnet that we're all right, poor woman, and then let's walk across to my place to breakfast."

There was no need to go and tell Mother Bonnet, for she had caught sight of us, and came at a heavy trot over the pebbles to display a face and eyes red with weeping, and to burst forth into quite a wail as she flung her arms about Bigley, and hugged and kissed him.

"Oh, my dear child! My dear child!" she cried, "I've been up and down here all night afraid that you was drowned."

Just then I noticed that Bob Chowne was backing behind his father, and feeling moved by the same impulse, I backed behind mine, for we were both in a state of alarm for fear that the good-hearted old woman should want to hug and kiss us too. Fortunately, however, she did not, for all her attention was taken up by Bigley, and we soon after parted, Bigley going with Mother Bonnet towards old Jonas's cottage, and we boys following our fathers to reach the cliff path and get home.

"You will not come along here on the pony," said my father as the doctor mounted his st.u.r.dy little Exmoor-bred animal.

"Indeed but I shall," replied the doctor. "Why not?"

"It will be so dangerous for a mounted man."

"Tchah!" exclaimed the doctor, "my pony's too fond of himself to tumble us down the cliff; but there, as you are so nervous about me I will not ride. Here, Bob, you ride the pony home, and I'll walk."

"Ride him home along the cliff path, father?" said Bob, looking rather white.

"Yes, of course. Captain Duncan is afraid of losing his doctor, and you are not so much consequence as I. Here, jump up, and ride on first.

Then we shall see where you fall."

Bob looked at me wildly.

"Not afraid, are you?"

"N-no, father," cried Bob desperately; and setting his teeth, he put his foot in the stirrup, mounted, and rode on along the high path with the rock on one side and the steep slope on the other, which ran down to where the perpendicular cliff edge began, with the sea a couple of hundred feet below.

"I don't think I'd do that, Chowne," I heard my father say in remonstrance.

"Bah, sir! Give the boy self-reliance. See how bravely he got over his scare. Haven't liked him so well for a week. Do you think I should have let him get up if there had been any danger?"

"But there is danger," said my father.