was the piece of well-tarred rope,
hanging by a loop made of fishing line.

"Ready when wanted--eh?"

The boys laughed and went off soon after towards home.

"Five shillings worse off," said Mike, when they parted for the night;
"but I'm glad we got out of all that so easily.--I say, Cinder!"

"Well?"

"It would have been rather awkward if he'd taken it the other way and
been in a rage."

"Very," said Vince, before whose eyes the two feet of rope seemed to
loom out of the evening gloom.

"And it would have been all your fault."

"Yes," said Vince shortly. "Good-night: I want to get home."

They parted, and as he walked back Vince could not help thinking a good
deal about the previous afternoon's experience, and he shook his head
more than once before beginning to think of the cavern.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

FRESH PULLS FROM THE MAGNET.

A week elapsed; the weather had been stormy, and a western gale had
brought the sea into a furious state, making the waves deluge the huge
western cliffs, and sending the churned-up foam flying over the edge and
inland like dingy balls of snow.

And the boys were kept in by the gale?

Is it likely? The more fiercely the wind blew, the more heavily the
huge Atlantic waves thundered against the cliffs and sent the spray
flying up in showers, the more they were out on the cliffs searching the
dimly seen horizon, watching to see if any ship was in danger.

But it was rare for a ship to be seen anywhere near Cormorant Crag when
a sou'-wester blew. Its rocks and fierce currents were too well known
to the hardy mariner, who shook his head and fought his way outward into
deep water if he could not reach a port, sooner than be anywhere near
that dangerous rock-strewn shore.

Vince and Mike had long known that when the wind was at its highest, and
it was hard work to stand against it, there was little danger in being
near the edge of some perpendicular precipice, and that there, with the
rock-face fully exposed to the gale, and the huge waves rushing in to
leap against the towering masses with a noise like thunder, they could
sit down in comparative shelter, and gaze with feelings akin to awe at
the tumult below.

Why? For the simple reason that, after striking against a high, flat
surface, the swift current of air must go somewhere. It cannot turn
back and meet the winds following it, neither can it dive into the sea.
It can only go upward, and sweeps several feet beyond