ous seal started up, threw out its head and began to
shuffle rapidly away from where it had been asleep. The alarm was taken
by half a dozen more, and by the time the two boys were afoot and had
seized their weapons--_splash, splash, splash_!--the heavy creatures had
plunged back into the pool from which they had crawled to sleep, and by
the whispering and lapping of the water on the walled sides of the cave
the boys knew that the curious beasts were swimming rapidly away towards
the mouth.

"Nice damp sort of bedfellows," said Vince, laughing merrily. "I say,
Mike, I'm all right. I don't know, though--I can't feel my legs very
well. Yes, they're all right."

"What do you mean?" said Mike. "I meant they haven't eaten any part of
you, have they?"

"Don't talk stuff," said Mike, rather pettishly. "How could we be so
foolish as to go to sleep?"

"No foolishness about it," said Vince quietly. "We were tired, and it
was dark, and we dropped off. I say, I'm hungry. Think we've been to
sleep long?"

"I don't know. Perhaps. There's only one way to find out: go to the
mouth of the hole."

"Yes--that's the only way," said Vince; "and now the use of the candle
comes in. I don't know, though: it seems a pity to light the last bit.
Shall we go and see?"

Mike suppressed a shiver of dread, and said firmly,--"Yes."

Another point arose, and that was as to whether they should put on their
clothes again.

It seemed a pity to do so and again get them wet; but both felt
repugnant to attempting to wade back without them, and they began to
feel about, half in dread lest the seals which had visited them in the
night should have chosen their clothes for a sleeping place.

They were, however, just as they had been left, and, to the astonishment
of both, they were nearly dry.

"Why, Mike," cried Vince, "we must have slept for hours and hours."

"We can't. The cave's warm, I suppose, and that accounts for it. How
are your trousers getting on?"

"Oh, right enough, only they're very gritty. Glad to get into them,
though."

In a very short time they were dressed, and it being decided that they
would not return here if it were possible to avoid it, the lanthorn and
tinder-box were taken, and they made up their minds to make the venture
of wading back in the dark.

Mike was rather disposed to fight against it, but he yielded to his
companion's reasoning when he pointed out that before long they would be
able to see