eling creepy when you didn't know where you were going next."

"Well, I daresay you felt so too."

"Of course I did," continued Vince. "I expected to put my foot in a
great crack every minute, and fall right through to Botany Bay."

"Yes," said Mike seriously. "There's something about being in the dark
that is queer."

"Till you get used to it," said Vince, jumping up, with his boots laced.
"Now, then, look sharp. I want to have another good look round."

"Ready," said Mike. "I say, let's make a fireplace here, and bring
wood, and get a frying-pan and a kettle, and cook fish and make tea and
enjoy ourselves."

Vince nodded assent.

"Yes," he said; "might sleep here if you came to that. Sand would make
a jolly bed and bed-clothes too. I say, we've found a place that some
boys would give their heads to have. Why, there's no end to the fun we
can have here. We can fish from the mouth."

"Yes, and I found some oysters--put my foot on them."

"And we can bring things by degrees: potatoes and apples and flour.
Why, Ladle, old chap, we can beat old Robinson Crusoe all to nothing,
and smugglers and robbers and those sort of people. But we must keep it
a secret. If any one else knew of this place being here it would be
spoiled at once. I say, what's that?"

"What?" said Mike.

"That dark bit there?" and Vince nodded to a spot in the gloomiest part
of the cavern, right up in one corner, where the roof rose highest.

"Crack in the rock. There's another just beyond."

"Yes, a regular split. Hope it don't mean that the roofs going to
tumble in."

"Not just yet," said Mike, gazing up curiously at the fault in the
granite stratum. "We might try where it goes to."

"Want a ladder," said Vince; "and you may carry it, for I'm not going to
try and bring that sort of thing down here. I say, there's the place to
make a fire, just by the mouth, and then the smoke will all go up
outside; and we can wash our fish and keep the place clean. Those pools
will be splendid. There's one deep enough to bathe in."

"There, I tell you what," said Mike; "we've got about as splendid a
place close to home as any fellows could find if they went all over the
world. I say, though, how we could laugh at old Joe if we brought him
down and showed him the Scraw has about as beautiful a cave as there is
anywhere!"

"I say, don't talk about it. I wouldn't have any one know for the
world; and do be careful about smuggling thin