ack.

"What are you laughing at?" he shouted.

"It was so comic," panted Aleck, wiping his eyes.

"Shall I go arter him, sir?" said Tom.

"No, no. He is half way to the top by now."

"Yes, yes," cried the middy; "and look sharp, or perhaps he'll be trying
to shut us up again."

"Not he," said Aleck; "he won't stop till he is safe. I don't believe
we shall see the lazy old scoundrel again."

Aleck's words proved to be true.

Later on he and his party made their way up to the smugglers' cottages,
to find them deserted by everyone save Eben Megg's wife, with three
pretty little dark-eyed children.

The woman looked frightened, and burst into tears as she recognised the
young officer, who began at her at once.

"You're a nice woman, you are," he said. "What have you got to say for
yourself for keeping me a prisoner below there?"

"I--I only did what I was told, sir," faltered the woman.

"Were you told to fasten us down there to starve?" cried the middy.

"Fasten?--to starve? Were you left down there, sir, when my Eben was
knocked down and carried away?"

"Of course we were."

"I didn't know, sir," sobbed the woman. "If I had, though I was in such
trouble, I'd have come and brought you all I could, same as I did
before, sir. Indeed I would."

"Humph!" grunted the middy. "Well, you did feed me as well as you
could. So you've lost your husband, then?"

The woman tried to answer, but only sobbed more loudly.

"There, don't cry," said the middy, more gently. "We shall make an
honest man of him."

"And what's to become of my poor weans, Master Aleck? We shall all be
turned out of the cottage."

"I don't think you will," said Aleck. "I daresay uncle won't let anyone
interfere with you."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

There were busy days during the next week, with men from the sloop and
cutter, brought back by the middy's "despatch," going up and down the
zigzag like so many ants, bringing up the principal treasures of the
cave, the sailors working with all their might over the greatest haul
they had ever made, and chuckling over the amount of prize money they
would have to draw.

There was a fair amount of work done and much recovering of valuable
gear during two days of the next spring tide, when Aleck and his
companion were rowed in one of the sloop's boats along a narrow channel
of deep water right up the cavern. They were poled in, and foun