The Lost Middy Part 53

"Yes, it's morning; rouse up. I fancy it must be late."

"Looks to me as if it is dreadfully early. I fancied I was being roused up to go on deck. What are you doing?"

"Going to get a light."

This Aleck did after the customary nicking and blowing. The candle in the lanthorn was lit, and the lads, after cautiously testing the depth of the water, indulged in a good bathe, gaining confidence as they swam, and finally dried themselves upon an exceedingly harsh towel formed of a piece of canvas, one of many hanging where they had been thrown over pieces of rock.

As they dressed they could see that it was getting lighter inside the arch, which gradually showed more plainly, and as the water grew lower during the time that they partook of the meal which formed their breakfast, the twilight had broadened, so that both became hopeful of seeing the tide sink beneath the crown of the arch so as to give them a glance at the sunlit surface of the sea.

"How long are you going to wait for the smuggler?" asked the middy, suddenly.

"Not long," was the reply. "It is not fair to you. But I should like to give him a little law. What do you say to waiting here till the tide has got to its lowest, and as soon as it turns we'll start?"

"Very well, I agree," said the mids.h.i.+pman, "for I don't think that we shall have long to wait. I was expecting it to go down so low that I should see the full daylight yesterday, but before I got the slightest peep it began to rise again."

"But it came lighter than this?" said Aleck.

"No; I don't think it was so light as this. I believe it is just about turning now."

The sailor proved to be right; and as soon as Aleck felt quite sure he turned to his companion and proposed that they should start.

"I don't know what my uncle will say," he said. "You'd better come home with me. He will be astonished when he sees that I have found you."

"Did he know that I was lost?"

"Of course. Your fellow officer came straight to our place to search it, thinking we knew where you were. Well, uncle will be very glad.

Come along. I shall take the lanthorn with us to see our way up the zigzag. I think I could manage in the dark, as I came down and know something of the place, but it would be awkward for you."

"Oh, yes; let's have all the light we can," said the mids.h.i.+pman. "I'm quite ready. Shall we start?"

"Yes, come on," was the reply, and, holding the lanthorn well down, Aleck led the way along by the waterside till the rocks which had acted as stepping-stones were reached, and which were now quite bare.

These were pa.s.sed in safety, but not without two or three slips; and then after a walk back towards the twilight, somewhere about equal to the distance they had come, Aleck struck off up a slope and in and out among the blocks that had fallen from the roof to where he easily found the lowest slope of the zigzag, which they prepared to mount, the light from the lanthorn showing the nicks cut in the stone at the side.

"It's much harder work climbing up than sliding down," said Aleck.

"Of course," replied the mids.h.i.+pman, who toiled on steadily in the rear; "but it's very glorious to have one's leg free, and to know that before long one will be up in the glorious light of day. I say, are you counting how many of these slopes we have come up?"

"No," said Aleck, "I lost count; but I think we must be half way up."

"Bravo! But, I say, these smugglers are no fools. Who'd ever expect to find such a place as this? It must have taken them years to make."

"They were making it or improving it for years," said Aleck; "but they found the crack already made--it was natural."

"Think so?"

"Yes; the rock split just like a flash of lightning. Mind how you come--the roof is lower down here. Let's see, this must be where I hit my head in coming down. No, it can't be, for that was somewhere about the middle of one of the slopes, I think, and this is the end, just where it turns back and forms another slope."

Aleck ceased speaking and raised the lanthorn so as to examine the rock above and around him more attentively.

"Nice work this for a fellow's uniform. What with the climbing and sleeping in it I shall be in rags. But why don't you go on?" said the mids.h.i.+pman.

"I--I don't quite know," said Aleck, hesitating. "It seems different here to what it was when I came down."

"But you said you came down in the dark?"

"I did, and I suppose that's why it seems different."

"Well, never mind. Go on. It hurts my feet standing so long resting in this nick."

Aleck was still busy with the lanthorn, and remained silent, making his companion more impatient still.

"I say, go on," he said. "Why do you stop?"

"Because it seems to me as if I had come the wrong way, taken a wrong turning that I did not know of--one, I suppose, that I pa.s.sed in the dark."

"But this must be right," said the mids.h.i.+pman; "it goes up. Here are all the nicks for one's feet, and the part in the middle is all ground out as if things were dragged up. Go on, old chap; you must be right."

"So I think," said Aleck; "but I can't go on. It seems to me as if the place comes to an end here, and I can get no farther."

"That's a nice sort of a story. But you carried the light; have you taken a wrong turning?"

"I didn't know that there were any turnings."

"Have another good look, and make sure."

Aleck peered in all directions by the aid of the lanthorn--a very short task, seeing how they were shut in--and then carefully felt the stones.

"Well?" said the mids.h.i.+pman.

"I'm regularly puzzled," said Aleck. "Of course, it's very different coming in the other direction, and by candlelight instead of the darkness."

"Then you're regularly at fault."

"Quite."

"Try back, then. You light me and I'll lead."

They slid down to the bottom of the slope and stopped.

"I say," cried the mids.h.i.+pman; "you'll have to take me to your place and find me some clothes, for I shan't have a rag on if we're going to do much of this sort of thing."

"This must be right," said Aleck, without heeding the remark. "I can shut my eyes here and be sure of it by the feel."

"Then it's of no use to go down any farther?"

"Not a bit," said Aleck, firmly. "Look for yourself. Here are the foot nicks at the side, and the floor is all worn smooth. We must be right."

"Then forward once more. You must have missed something."