hole, all but a bit big enough for a pigeon to go in
and out. It'll give him a taste o' light and air. Now, youngster, on
with you. Show the lanthorn, Jemmy."

The man came forward, and Archy was made to follow him, the smuggler and
his son coming on behind; and ten minutes later the prisoner was seated
in his old place in the darkness, with Ram's basket of provisions for
consolation. As he sat there, listening to the departing footsteps, and
feeling more and more that it was quite true,--escape must be impossible
down the cliff, or else they would not have left him with the opening
unguarded,--there was the dull, heavy report of the closing trap-door,
and the rattle and snap of bolts, and that followed by the rumbling down
of the pieces of stone.

He had pretty well thought out the correct theory of this noise, that it
was on purpose to hide the trap-door from any prying eyes which might
pass, and prying eyes must be few, he felt, or else the smugglers would
not have had recourse to so clumsy a contrivance.

He thought all this over again, as he sat there wearied out and
despondent, for in the morning his task had seemed as good as achieved,
and now he was face to face with the fact, after all that labour, that
it had been in vain, and he was more a prisoner than ever.

"Not quite so badly off as some, though," he thought, as, moved thereto
by the terrible hunger he felt, he stretched out his hand for the
basket. Not bread and water, but good tasty provisions, and--"What's
this in the bottle?" he asked himself, as he removed the cork.

It was good wholesome cider, and being seventeen, and growing fast,
Archy forgot everything for the next half-hour in the enjoyment of a
hearty meal.

An hour later, just as he was thinking of going to the opening to sit
there and look out at the evening sky, he dropped off fast asleep, and
was wakened by the coming of two of the smugglers, who busied themselves
in the repairs of the broken wall.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

That day Jemmy Dadd brought him his food, and the next day, and the
next.

"What did it mean?" he asked himself. He could understand this man
being the bearer while he was employed at the mason work; but when that
was over, he felt puzzled at Ram not coming.

Then he began to wonder whether the boy was ill in consequence of his
fall, and he longed to ask, but, as everything he said to Dadd was
received in gloomy silence, he felt indisposed to questio