George, half
jestingly. "Haul it out, and we'll use it as our water-butt."

The keg was accordingly fished out of the sea, and added to our little
pile of salvage. One or two more small fragments of wood were next
recovered; then George pointed to a long, slender spar which I had
already noticed, but which was floating close to the opposite wall of
the cavern, and beyond our reach.

"That looks like an oar, Master Eden," he said. "We'll get that
somehow. I think I can manage it with a line and slip-knot made out of
some of that rope."

It did not take long for this simple tackle to be prepared, and with
its aid George soon secured the oar, and handed it up to me as I stood
above him on the rock. He passed it up, I say, blade first, and I
remember, as I caught hold of it, having given a sudden cry, almost as
though the wood had been red-hot iron.

"What's the matter?" shouted the astonished guard.

"O George, look here!--look at this!"

With a bound Woodley was at my side; but even then he could not guess
the reason for my outcry. There was, after all, little for him to
see--merely a letter "L" branded into the water-worn surface of the
wood.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

"Matter!" I cried. "Don't you see that mark? This is one of the oars
from Lewis's boat. O Woodley! can't you guess what's happened? She's
capsized, and all those drunken rascals are drowned. I remember now
there was a yell as they passed out of the cave, and then silence. I
thought they'd gone beyond our hearing, but when they got into the
swirl of the backwash at the foot of the cliffs they must have
overturned. Lewis himself told me how dangerous it was. It would have
been a difficult thing for a sober and experienced crew to get safely
out to sea, but with the first bad lurch those madmen would have flung
themselves about, and lost their balance in no time."

"It can't have been that," said George, who stood aghast at my
suggestion. "Ten men drowned within fifty yards of us, and we none the
wiser! No, no, Master Eden; I won't believe it."

"You forget they were all of them drunk," I answered. "Even if any of
them had floated for a moment, we weren't likely to hear their stifled
cries right back here, and above the noise the wash of the sea was
making."

"How d'you know that oar came out of the boat? Its being marked with
an 'L' is no proof that it belonged to Lewis."

"You forget I went out in his boat several tim