Chapter THE FOURTH: The Cave of Seals

Some few days afterwards, Mr. Mildmay, visiting the Towers once more, chanced to mention that as he passed St. Cuby's Cove in his cutter he had seen a couple of seals disporting themselves in the shallow water under the cliff. The conversation passed at once to other matters, but next morning Dick told Sam what the lieutenant had said, and suggested that they should go seal-hunting. Sam was nothing loth, and promised to accompany his young master as soon as he had fed the poultry and cleaned out the sties.

Seals were not often seen on the coast; indeed, Dick had only once before heard of their appearance, so that the proposed expedition had all the charm of novelty. While waiting for Sam, he went to the kitchen, where Reuben Pollex was washing the dishes, and asked him if he could tell him how to tackle a seal.

"That's more than I can do, Maister Dick," said the old man. "I never caught nawthin' but fish and rabbits, and maybe a stoat now and again; never seed a seal in my life."

"They're valuable, Reuben," said Dick. "The skins are worth a good deal. They are made into coats and tippets and such things for ladies, you know."

"The mistress wants a new coat, so 'twould come handy, and I wish 'ee luck. I've heerd tell that the critters sometimes hide in the cave yonder, though as no man, 's far 's I know, ever did see 'em there, it may be only guesswork."

The cave mentioned was at the head of St. Cuby's Cove. Its entrance was exposed only at low tide, and Dick had more than once visited it at such times, exploring its recesses by the light of a torch or one of the house lanterns. He had never made any interesting discovery there, and had for some years ceased to visit it.

"Didn't you tell me once that there is an entrance to the cave from the land side, Reuben?" he asked.

"Ay, folks used to say so when I was a boy, but I don't know as there be any truth in it. Once upon a time, long afore my day, there was a mine thereabouts, and maybe one of the adits ran down to the cave; but 'tis sixty year or more since the mine give out--in yer grandfer's time--and not a soul have been down in the workings ever since, 's far 's I know."

Here Sam appeared and announced that he was ready. The two lads, provided with a gun, a cutlass, a lantern, and a few candle-ends, proceeded to the spot on the beach of Trevanion Bay where their boat was moored, launched her, and rowed round the promontory to St. Cuby's Cove. The tide was running out, and as the interval during which the cave was free from water was very short, Dick and his companion worked the boat through the entrance with their hands as soon as there was room for them to pass between the roof and the surface of the sea.

The opening was at first a narrow tunnel in the cliff, but after some yards it began to widen gradually, and at length enlarged itself into a spacious vault, in which there was a continuous murmur, such as is heard on putting a shell to one's ear. By the time the boys reached it the tide had completely left the cave, and the boat stranded on a sandy beach, littered with rocks of all shapes and sizes, which had apparently fallen at various times from the roof. They lit their lantern, whose yellow rays fell on jagged granite walls, glistening shells, and slimy seaweed covering the rocks on the floor. Here and there were small pools which the tide never left dry, and where the light of the lantern revealed innumerable little marine creatures darting this way and that with extraordinary rapidity.

The boys made the boat fast by looping the painter round a jagged boulder. They moved warily, for the seal was a beast unknown to either of them, though Dick, in his total ignorance of these creatures of the deep, hardly expected to find them in the cave now that the sea had receded. Presently, however, they heard above the hollow murmur another sound, like the feeble bleat of a very young lamb. They peered about, moving the lantern to and fro, and at length discovered, lying on a rocky ledge at the inmost end of the cave, two small cream-coloured objects, scarcely more than a foot long, whose soft eyes blinked in the light, and from whose mouths issued plaintive cries of alarm.

"Bean't they proper little mites!" said Sam, putting out his hand to touch them.

"Don't do that!" cried Dick hastily; "the old ones may be about, and if they're like other beasts, they'll attack us if they think we'll hurt their young."

"Shan't we take 'em, then?" asked Sam.

"Of course not; they're too young."

"And shan't we look for the old uns?"

"No; the young ones would die if we killed the parents. We must come again later on, when they're old enough to take care of themselves. But our day shan't be wasted. We'll see if we can find the other entrance to the cave."

"What other entrance?"

"Your father says 'tis thought that at one time there was a way in from an adit above."

"I can't believe it. The free-traders would have found it long afore this if so 'twere."

"I don't know. The adit wouldn't be an easy passage for them with their bales and kegs. But don't let us waste time; the tide will be running back soon."

They followed the irregular circuit of the cave, thrusting the lantern into every recess and hollow, holding it high and low, but discovering nothing except the same rugged and apparently impenetrable wall.

"There bean't no opening," said Sam at length. "'Twas fiddle-faddle to say there be."

"Perhaps it is high above us, out of reach," suggested Dick.

"Where's the sense o' that?" replied Sam, disappointed of the anticipated sport. "What mortal good would it be to any soul alive to make an opening where 'ee'd break yer neck if you come to it?"

Dick did not answer, craning his neck to scan the heights above him. The light of the lantern failed to penetrate the overarching gloom. The roof of the cave was invisible, and the walls appeared to rise perpendicularly, with projections here and there that looked, in the spectral glimmer, like the grotesque gargoyles on a church-tower.

"I'd like to climb up there," said Dick at length.

"Lawk-a-massy, you'd break yer neck for sure. 'Tis a 'mazing hard job to climb the cliff arter gulls' eggs, but this be death and burial."

"We could do it with a ladder."

"Our ladder bean't long enough by half; the only ladders long enough be they in church-tower, and they be too heavy to lug here, and sexton wouldn't let us take 'em. Scrounch it all, Maister Dick, I do think 'ee be muddled in yer head to think o' sech daring doings. See now, tide's comin' in, and we don't want to be drownded."

"That's the most sensible thing you've said for a while, Sam. We'll go now, but I won't give it up. We'll get a ladder, or make one, and come back another day. I'm determined to find out if there really is an opening."

"Well, Feyther says most heads do have a magget in 'em, like turmits, and this be yours; 'tis indeed."

They loosed the boat, and paddled out as they had come, Dick resolving, in spite of his follower's damping attitude, to return before long, and make a thorough exploration of the place.

Later in the day, as he walked home from the Parsonage, he was struck with an idea of a contrivance for serving his purpose. He consulted old Reuben about it when he got home, and Sam, on returning from an errand in the village, found his father and Dick hard at work in an outhouse, splicing short lengths of rope, and fixing them at regular intervals between two thin but strong poles about six feet long.

"What be doin', Feyther?" asked Sam.

"Use yer eyes, sonny, and put a name to 't yerself," replied Reuben.

"Well, if I was to speak my thought, I'd say 'ee was makin' a ladder that 'ud let a man down as soon as he put a foot on it."

"Then 'tis for you to make it stronger, my son, babe and sucklin' as 'ee be. T'ud be a sin to let so much cleverness run to seed. Strip off yer coat and lay into it, and keep yer tongue quiet, for if 'ee set all the organs of yer body goin' at once, you'll die young."

This implied rebuke had the effect of making Sam enter zealously into the work, and before supper two light ladders were finished, each six feet long, which, together with a short ladder of the ordinary kind that Reuben used in his duties about the premises, provided Dick with a total length of eighteen or twenty feet. His notion was to carry these separate pieces down to the cave, and then lash them together to form one continuous whole.

He fixed on the following afternoon for his second visit to the cave. The morning turned out very wet, the rain pouring down in quite unusual volume; but the sky cleared after dinner, and the two boys set off, timing themselves as before to reach the cave when the ebbing tide left the entrance free. Again the baby seals were alone, and much as Dick would have liked a tussle with their parents, his sporting bent was for the time subordinate to his wish to find the supposed landward entrance to the cave.

The ladder perfectly answered its purpose, but it was disappointing to find that it was by no means long enough. Even when Dick, the taller of the two, stood on the topmost rung, Sam holding the ladder steady at the bottom, he saw that the walls still stretched for several feet above him. But the roof was now in sight, an irregular arch, consisting of knobs, wedges, and inverted pyramids of rock, and Dick felt the tantalising certainty that the opening, if opening there was, could not be far away.

They went all round the cave, setting the ladder up at frequent intervals, Dick exploring every foot of the jagged wall with the aid of his lantern. There were plenty of recesses and depressions, ranging from a finger's breadth to the length of his arm; but he did not find one where he was unable to touch the back of it with his outstretched hand. It was clear that the opening, if it existed, must be above his head.

"We shall have to make another length of ladder, and come back again," he said to Sam. "I won't give it up."

He was standing high on the ladder as he spoke, dangling the lantern by a ring at the top. The words were scarcely out of his mouth when there was a tremendous crash, which shook the place, and so much startled him that, in an instinctive movement to cling on to something, he let the lantern fall. It lighted fairly on the top of Sam's head, bounced off, and dropped with a thud to the sandy floor, where the candle was instantly extinguished.

"Are you hurt, Sam?" cried Dick, anxiously.

"Rabbit it all!" roared Sam, in high indignation. "Do 'ee think my head be wood then? Bean't I got feelings like any other common man? My skull have got a furrow in it a yard long, and I may rub it till I'm dead, I'll never straighten it out again."

"I'm sorry, but I couldn't help it, Sam. Light the candle again, will you, so that we can see what has happened."

Sam growled and grunted as he struck a light from his tinder-box. The rekindled candle revealed a strange catastrophe. A huge mass of the wall and roof of the cavern had collapsed, owing perhaps to the heavy rains in the morning, and the debris was lying in a heap against the opening of the tunnel leading to the exterior.

"If this bean't a pretty kettle of fish, never call me Sam again," said the boy in consternation. "'Tis closed up; we be shet in."

Dick climbed down the ladder, and crossed the floor of the cave to see the extent of the mischief. It was as Sam had said. Their exit was barred by a mass of rock and loose soil that must weigh several tons.

"Quick, Sam!" cried Dick, "we must work hard to clear it away. The tide will be on the turn, and we don't want to be imprisoned here all night."

They began to work with all haste, but soon found that the task would be a long one. The smaller pieces of rock were easily cast aside; but there were many large masses which, besides being heavy and cumbersome themselves, were very difficult to move by reason of the earth in which they were imbedded. The boys had made but little progress when the sea began to creep in.

"We'll be drownded alive!" said Sam, now in a state of terror.

"Work, then. Shove your hardest, Sam; we'll do it yet."

They tugged and hauled and pushed with fierce energy, and by employing their united strength upon the largest masses, they succeeded in clearing a path wide enough to allow room for the boat. By this time the water was almost up to their knees, and they heard the boat graze the rocks as it floated on the incoming tide. Loosing the painter, they pushed the craft through the tunnel, only to find, when they approached the seaward opening, that but a small segment of the sky was visible, the gap being too shallow to afford a passage.

"We are trapped, Sam; there's no denying it," said Dick quietly. "But don't be alarmed. I don't suppose the water reaches the roof of the cave even at high tide, so that we can float in the boat quite safely. It only means a few hours' imprisonment."

"If I've got to be jailed, I'd rather be in village lock-up; 'tis dry at any rate. Can't we swim out, Maister Dick?"

"Of course we can, but I doubt whether we had better do it. There's a dozen yards or more under water first, and then a good half-mile outside before we can land. We should get pretty well knocked about on the rocks if there's any swell on the sea. We had much better stay here."

Sam gloomily assented to this course. They got into the boat, and sat there for some time watching it rise gradually as the tide grew higher.

"Hang me for a jackass!" cried Dick suddenly.

"What have 'ee been and done?" asked Sam with concern.

"Why, we haven't got gun, cutlass, or any other weapon."

"'A b'lieve not," said Sam, "but we couldn't keep out the tide with un if we had forty guns and fifty cutlasses."

"The seals! They'll come back with the tide, and be in a terrible rage with us, thinking we're after their babies."

"Be-jowned if I thought of it! 'Twas a true word; you do be a great jackass, sure enough."

"Mind what you say, Sam, or I'll throw you out."

"'Twas your word, not mine. I wouldn't go so far as that. Ninnyhammer is the worst I'd call 'ee. But I told 'ee how 'twould be, with yer head itchin' with this magget of openin's and ladders and all that."

"Be ready to use the boat-hook, or the anchor, if the seals attack us. I'll use one of the oars."

"I don't believe we'll have to fight at all," cried Sam. "Look 'ee! There be they two young seals swimmin' out to find the old uns. They bean't so young as you thought if they can swim like that, and we med as well have took 'em yesterday as not."

"Well, 'tis too late now. They're gone."

"To get their supper, I reckon. I be mortal hungry, Maister Dick, arter all that work. Have 'ee got a morsel of bread in yer pocket?"

"Not a bit."

"Not a apple or codling?"

"Not one."

"I could eat a turmit or a raw tater. But don't name 'em to me, or I shall feel very bad for thinkin' of 'em. Best thing is to go to sleep when yer hungry, 'cos you don't feel it then."

"Well, sleep. I'll wake you if anything happens."

The boy curled himself up in the bottom of the boat, and soon filled the cavern with his snores.