air, or
else make his way right under the trap-door, and climb up to it, and sit
and listen for the coming of Ram.

One morning he was there, wondering whether it was near the boy's hour,
and he was listening most intently, so as to get full warning and insure
time enough to go back to his place and wait, when he fancied he heard
the bark of a dog.

It was not repeated, and he was beginning to think that it was fancy,
when the sound came again nearer, then nearer still, till there was a
prolonged volley of canine-words, let us call them, for they evidently
meant something from their being so persistent.

"Why--hurrah! He has found me!" cried the prisoner excitedly; and he
heard quite plainly, as he clung to the rough steps and pressed his ear
against the trap-door, the eager scratching made by a dog, and the
snuffling noise as it tried to thrust its nose down amongst the stones.

"Hi! Good dog then!" he shouted, and there was a furious burst of
barking.

Then there was a sharp sound as if a heavy stone had fallen upon a heap,
and he heard it rattle down to the side.

Then there was a fierce growl, a bark, and directly after silence.

The midshipman's heart, which had been throbbing with excitement a few
minutes before, sank down now like lead, as he waited to hear the sounds
again, but waited in vain.

If ever the loud baying of a dog sounded like music in his ear, it was
during those brief moments, and as he sat there, longing to know what it
meant, and whether his conjecture was right that the dog had scented him
out, he faintly heard the gruff tones of a voice, and, hastily
descending, he went down the slope and made for his usual place.

"That's what it was," said Archy to himself. "The dog scented me out,
and was scratching there till that great brute of a smuggler saw him,
and threw a stone and drove him away. There they are."

He was right, the rough pieces of stone were being removed, and a few
minutes later he saw the swinging lamp coming through the gloom.

The prisoner was, as he said, quite right, for that day Celia Graeme had
wandered down towards the edge of the huge line of cliffs in a different
direction to that which it was her wont to take.

It was not often that she stirred far from the gloomy fir-wood at the
back of the house, for her life had not been that of most young people
of her age. Her father's disappointed and impoverished life, consequent
upon his political opinions, and