if on fire where
the rock was bare, and as our eyes fell to where the tide was coming in,
the waves, as they curled over, were burnished, and flashed and glowed
like liquid fire.

It was all grand in the extreme, but somehow I felt, as did Bob and
Bigley, that a well-spread tea-table with some hot fried ham and some
eggs, with new bread, would have been worth it all.

I am almost ashamed to put this down, but my companions confided their
feelings to me afterwards, and it is perfectly true.

By degrees the bright colours on the sea and overspreading the sky faded
out, and all grew dark, save where there was a glow in the north. The
stars had come out bright and clear, and covered the sky like so many
points of light looking down at themselves in the mirror-like sea. The
tide came up fast, and as the waves heaved and swayed and ran in, it
seemed as if they were sweeping before them myriads and myriads of
stars, for the water was covered with light, some being the reflections
from the sky, others the curious little specks that we used to see in
the water in warm weather.

We sat and talked and lay close to the edge to watch the waves come
sweeping in more and more, till the little bay was covered and the tide
rose over the outlying rock, the water sounding wild and strange as it
washed, and splashed, and sighed, and sucked in amongst the stones.
Then, by slow degrees, as we gazed down we found how necessary it had
been for us to climb up to our perch, for the tide rose and rose, higher
and higher, till it must have been seven or eight feet up the rocks
below us; and now it was that we listened with a peculiar creeping
sensation to the swell, as it rolled in and evidently right up into the
caves which we had seen.

"Why, those places must go a long way into the cliffs," said my father
as we listened. "Hark at that."

It was a curious creepy sound of hissing and roaring, as if there were
strange wild beasts right in amongst the windings of the cave, and they
had become angry with the sea for intruding in their domain.

"Seals!" said Bob Chowne decisively.

"No," said my father, "it is only the imprisoned air escaping from some
of the cracks and crevices into which it is driven by the sea. Why,
boys, those caves must be very large, or at all events they go in a long
way. You ought to explore them some day at low water. Warm enough?"

We all declared that we were, and sat gazing out at the soft transparent
dar