surrounding it and trying
to hide it from those on shore, as with the faint breeze and the swift
tide it glided rapidly away.

Soon after there was a warm glow high up in the east. Then hundreds of
tiny clouds began to fleck the sky with orange, the sea became glorious
with gold and blue, the sun peeped above the edge, and it was day once
more, with the vessel a couple of miles away going due west.

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

DOING ONE'S DUTY.

We did not have to stay very long before we descended. My father said
it would be better to stop, and while we were waiting Bob Chowne asked
whether we were going to search the cave and see what was there.

"No!" said my father in very decisive tones.

"But you said something about us lads exploring it, sir, yesterday--I
mean last night."

"Yes, my lad, I did," replied my father so sternly that Bob Chowne was
quite silenced; "but I have changed my mind."

I noticed that he still did not say anything to Bigley, and that my old
school-fellow was very silent, in fact we were none of us in a
conversational frame of mind, but every now and then the idea kept
creeping in that old Jonas must know about that cave, and the purpose
for which it was used; and then I seemed to understand my father's
thoughtful manner, for it was as though this discovery was likely to
widen the breach between them.

In about an hour's time my father proposed that we should climb down,
and feeling very stiff and cold we began to descend.

I went first, lowering myself from ledge to ledge, with my father lying
down and holding my hands, and then following me, though really it was
not very difficult, for we boys had been up and down far more dangerous
places after gulls' eggs in our earlier days.

But, though we could go down in the bay, we could not get out of it as
yet, for the tide was some distance up the point we wanted to pass. The
eastern one was clear, and we could have gone that way, and, after two
miles' walk and scramble along the beach, have found a place where we
could climb up, but that was not our object, and we waited about looking
at the falling tide, and watching the rapidly disappearing three masts
of the lugger. Then, too, we noted the tracks on the beach, some of
which were quite plain, but they did not show higher up by the cavern,
and we knew that they would all disappear with, the next tide.

The temptation was very strong to go in and explore the place, but
neither Bob n