The Lost Middy Part 55

"Then my notion is that we take it as coolly as we can till we think it's a suitable time. Then we'll strip, make a couple of bundles of our clothes, go in as near to that arch as we can, and then try to dive under and out to the daylight."

Aleck raised the lanthorn to bring its dim light full upon his companion's face, gazing at him hard as if in doubt of his sanity. For the words were spoken as calmly and coolly as if he had been proposing some ordinary jump into clear water at a bathing-place.

But he only saw that the speaker's countenance was perfectly unruffled, and his next words convinced him that he was speaking in all seriousness.

"Well, don't look so horrified," he said, half laughingly. "You haven't been bragging, have you? Don't say you can't swim?"

"Oh, I can swim easily enough," said Aleck, impatiently; "but suppose one rose too soon, right up amongst those rugged rocks, with the sea-wrack hanging down in long strips ready to strangle us?"

"I'm not going to suppose anything of the sort," said the midshipman.

"Why should you suppose such horrors? I might just as well say: suppose a great shark should rush in open-mouthed to swallow me down and then grab you by the leg, throw you over on to his back, and carry you about till he felt hungry again?"

"But you don't see the danger?" cried Aleck.

"And don't want to see it. I daresay it is dangerous, but nearly everything is if you look at it in that way. Well, what now? Why do you look at me like that?"

"Because I don't understand you," said Aleck. "Yesterday you seemed as weak as a girl, while now you are proposing impossible things, and seem to be trying to brag as if to make me feel that you are not so weak as you were then."

"Perhaps so," said the middy, laughing good-humouredly. "I was as weak as a girl yesterday, but I don't feel so now; and though you are partly right, and I don't want you to think me such a molly, I really am ready to make a dash at it if you will."

"I'll do anything that I think is possible," said Aleck, gravely, "but I don't want to be rash."

"Then you think it would be rash to try and dive out under that archway?"

"Horribly," said Aleck, with a shudder; and at that moment the candle, which, unnoticed through the dull horn, had burned down and begun flickering in the socket, suddenly flashed up brightly, flickered for a moment or two, and went out.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

"Ugh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the midshipman. "I don't feel half so brave now, and I don't believe I dare go in here in the darkness, set aside make a dive. Where's the tinder-box? For goodness' sake, strike a light and let's have another candle. Oh, you oughtn't to have let that out!"

"Come along," replied Aleck. "I think I can find the way to the place again. Mind how you come; there are so many stones. I say, why is it that one feels so shrinking in the dark and frightened of all sorts of things that we never dream of in the light?"

"I don't know, and don't want to talk about it now. Let's have a light first. I say, we must do something before the candles are all burnt out."

"Mind!" cried Aleck, for his companion caught his foot against one of the pieces of projecting rock against which he had been warned, and but for the throwing out of a friendly hand he would have gone head first into the water.

"Ugh!" he panted, as he clung, trembling now violently. "I wonder how deep the water is just there! How horrible! I say, don't let go of my hand. What are you doing?"

"I'm feeling for the lanthorn."

"What!" cried the midshipman, aghast. "Don't say you've lost that?"

"I wasn't going to," said Aleck, rather gruffly, as he thought that his companion was about the strangest compound of bravery and cowardice he had ever met. "But didn't you hear it go down crash?"

"No, I heard nothing. Here, what's this against my foot?"

Aleck stooped down and found that it was the missing lanthorn.

"It's lucky it did not roll into the water. Now, then, all right. Keep hold of hands, and let's feel our way to where I left the tinder-box.

Hold up; don't stumble again."

"I can't help it," said the middy, with his teeth chattering. "It feels as if all the strength had gone out of my legs. Here, Aleck, it's of no use to be a sham; hold on tightly by my hand and help me along. I'm afraid that was all brag about making the dive. I suppose I must be a horrible coward, after all."

"I'm afraid I am too," said Aleck bitterly, as he held the other's hand tightly and tried to progress cautiously in the dark. "I feel horrible, and as if the next step I take will send us both into the water."

"Ugh! Don't say that," whispered the middy, huskily. "I remember what that fellow said about the seals; but it's my belief that a dark piece of water like this must swarm with all kinds of terrible creatures."

"And yet you wanted to dive into it for a swim?"

"Yes, when the candle was alight."

"I didn't feel anything attack us when we bathed," said Aleck, quietly.

"Oh, don't talk about it," said the middy, shuddering. "I bathed then, but I don't feel as if, feeling what I do, I could risk another plunge in."

Aleck felt no disposition whatever to talk about the venture his companion in misfortune had proposed, for he was intent upon getting to the spot where the light-producing implement had been bestowed, and twice over he nearly lost his calmness, for the horrible idea attacked him that he had wandered quite away from the spot in the darkness.

It was an ugly thought, bringing up others of a strangely confusing nature, but at last, just when he was ready to confess to this fresh trouble, he came upon candle and tinder-box, over which his trembling fingers played for some minutes before the welcome spark appeared in the tinder and suffered itself to be blown up into a glow instead of dying out.

Hot and tired, the two lads made for the resting-place, and were thankful to cast themselves down, to lie in silence for close upon an hour before either of them ventured to advert to their position; but at last the midshipman declared that he knew it from the first, and that they were a pair of idiots to trust the word of a smuggler.

"I don't see it," said Aleck, who felt ready to give the man credit for having met with some mishap.

"Well, I do. It was a deeply-laid scheme to trap us--shut us up here and leave us to die while he escaped."

"Nonsense," cried Aleck. "Why, it would be a horrible murder!"

"Yes; horrible--diabolical--shocking."

"I don't believe Eben Megg would be such a wretch," said Aleck, stoutly.

"What, not a smuggler? They're the greatest villains under the sun."

"Are they?" said Aleck, drily.

"Yes, I know that," cried the middy angrily; "but I'll let the brute see. I'll have him hung at the yard-arm for this. He shall find out he made a mistake."

"When we get out," said Aleck, smiling in spite of their trouble, for his companion's peppery way of expressing himself was amusing.

"Yes, when we get out, of course. You don't suppose I'm going to settle myself quietly down here, do you?"

"Of course not," said Aleck; and then an idea occurred to him which made him check his companion just as he was about to burst into a tirade about what he would do.

"I say," cried Aleck, "it must be easy to get out of this if we wait till the time when the boats can come in."

"But do they ever come in?"