ct.

In the meantime his wife had died, and his only child, who had been
born since he entered upon this strange existence, had come to share
his lonely home. As she was but twelve years old when this great
change in her life took place, she of course knew nothing of business,
and had never heard of such a thing as smuggled goods. In her eyes
everything that her dear papa did was right, and she was too happy at
being permitted to become in any degree his assistant to think of
questioning his methods.

So the secret of the cavern and its underground connection was finally
confided to her. She was also intrusted with the duty of watching for
the little vessels that brought the goods in which her father dealt,
and of hanging out the signal-lights by which their movements were
guided. As these lights were always displayed from the stunted cedar
at the mouth of the cavern, and as this place also served her for a
post of observation, she passed much of her time within the limits of
the great cave.

Her father had won her promise never to mention the existence of the
cavern, and had also warned her not to allow herself to be seen in it.
There was, however, no necessity of such a warning, for Mary Darrell
was too proud of her great secret to share it. Even Aunty Nimmo, the
old black nurse who had come West with her, and had remained to care
for her ever since, was not told of the cavern, though she shrewdly
suspected its existence.

If to the foregoing explanation it is added that the little
trading-vessels, which were also to all appearance fisher-boats, never
took on their return cargoes from the cavern, but always at either
Laughing Fish Cove or the land-locked basin, the situation as it
existed at the time of Peveril's appearance on the scene will be
understood.

As the sister schooner of the one that had carried off Joe Pintaud was
due to arrive at about this date, Mary Darrell was keeping a sharp
watch for it, and paying frequent visits to her post of observation at
the mouth of the cavern for that purpose. On each of these she of
course drew aside the painted curtain, thereby letting in a rush of
air that penetrated to the innermost recesses of the great cavity
behind her.

It was a little breath from one of these that, finding its way through
the aperture beside the slab of rock, and so on down the narrow
passage that led to the prehistoric mine, had blown out Peveril's
candle. Of course the girl, who was the i