"Well, I"m just telling you what they said," n.o.bby went on. "You don"t know Lou and Tiger Dan like I do. They"ll stick at nothing to get their way - or to get anybody out of their way. They tried to poison Timmy, didn"t they? And poor old Barker got it instead."
"Is - is Barker - all right?" asked Anne.
"No," said n.o.bby. "He"s dying, I think. I"ve given him to Lucilla to dose. She"s a marvel with sick animals. I"ve put Growler with the other dogs. He"s safe with them."
He stared round at the other children, his mouth trembling, sniffing as if he had a bad cold.
"I dursent go back," he said, in a low voice, "I dursent. They"ll half-kill me."
"You"re not going back, so that"s settled," said Julian, in a brisk voice. "You"re staying here with us. We shall love to have you. It was jolly decent of you to come up and warn us - and bad luck to have got caught like that. You"re our friend now - and we"ll stick together."
n.o.bby couldn"t say a word, but his face shone. He rubbed a dirty hand across his eyes, then grinned his old grin. He nodded his head, not trusting himself to speak, and the children all thought how nice he was. Poor old n.o.bby.
They finished their ginger-beer and then Julian got up. "And now," he said, "we will do a little exploring and find out where those men went, shall we?"
"Oh yes!" cried George, who had sat still quite long enough. "We must find out! Do we have to get under the caravan, Julian?"
""Fraid so," said Julian. "You sit there quietly, n.o.bby, and keep guard in case Lou or Dan come back."
He didn"t think for a moment that they would, but he could see that n.o.bby needed to sit quietly for a while. n.o.bby, however, had different ideas. He was going to share this adventure!
"Timmy"s guard enough, and so is Pongo," he said. They"ll hear anyone coming half a mile away. I"m in on this!"
And he was. He went scrabbling underneath the low-swung base of the caravan with the others, eager to find out anything he could.
But it was impossible to explore down in the heather, with the caravan base just over their heads. They had no room at all. Like Dan and Lou they soon felt that they would have to move the van.
It took all five of them, with Pongo giving a shove, too, to move the caravan a few feet away. Then down they dropped to the thick carpet of heather again.
The tufts came up easily by the roots, because the men had already pulled them up once that day and then replanted them. The children dragged up a patch of heather about five feet square, and then gave an exclamation.
"Look! Boards under the heather!"
"Laid neatly across and across. What for?"
"Pull them up!"
The boys pulled up the planks one by one and piled them on one side. Then they saw that the boards had closed up the entrance of a deep hole. "I"ll get my torch," said Julian. He fetched it and flashed it on.
The light showed them a dark hole, going down into the hillside, with footholds sticking out of one side. They all sat and gazed down in excitement.
"To think we went and put our caravan exactly over the entrance of the men"s hiding-place!" said d.i.c.k. "No wonder they were wild! No wonder they changed their minds and told us we could go down to the lake and camp there instead of here!"
"Gosh!" said Julian, staring into the hole. "So that"s where the men went! Where does it lead to? They were down there a mighty long time. They were clever enough to replace the planks and drag some of the heather over them, too, to hide them when they went down."
Pongo suddenly took it into his head to go down the hole. Down he went, feeling for the footholds with his hairy feet, grinning up at the others. He disappeared at the bottom. Julian"s torch could not pick him out at all.
"Hey, Pongo! Don"t lose yourself down there!" called n.o.bby, anxiously. But Pongo had gone.
"Blow him!" said n.o.bby. "He"ll never find his way back, if he goes wandering about underground. I"ll have to go after him. Can I have your torch, Julian?"
"I"ll come too," said Julian. "George, get me your torch as well, will you?"
"It"s broken," said George. "I dropped it last night. And n.o.body else has got one."
"What an awful nuisance!" said Julian. "I want us to go and explore down there - but we can"t with only one torch. Well, I"ll just go down with n.o.bby and get Pongo - have a quick look round and come back. I may see something worth seeing!"
n.o.bby went down first, and Julian followed, the others all kneeling round the hole, watching them enviously. They disappeared.
"Pongo!" yelled n.o.bby. "Pongo! Come here, you idiot!"
Pongo had not gone very far. He didn"t like the dark down there very much, and he came to n.o.bby as soon as he saw the light of the torch. The boys found themselves in a narrow pa.s.sage at the bottom of the hole, which widened as they went further into the hill.
"Must be caves somewhere," said Julian, flashing his torch round. "We know that a lot of springs run out of this hill. I daresay that through the centuries the water has eaten away the softer stuff and made caves and tunnels everywhere in the hill. And somewhere in a cave Lou and Dan store away things they don"t want anyone to know about. Stolen goods, probably."
The pa.s.sage ended in a small cave that seemed to have no other opening out of it at all. There was nothing in it. Julian flashed his torch up and down the walls.
He saw footholds up one part, and traced them to a hole in the roof, which must have been made, years before, by running water. That"s the way we go!" he said. "Come on."
"Wait!" said n.o.bby. "Isn"t your torch getting rather faint?"
"Goodness - yes!" said Julian in alarm, and shook his torch violently to make the light brighter. But the battery had almost worn out, and no better light came. Instead the light grew even fainter, until it was just a pin-p.r.i.c.k in the torch.
"Come on - we"d better get back at once," said Julian, feeling a bit scared. "I don"t want to wander about here in the pitch dark. Not my idea of fun at all."
n.o.bby took firm hold of Pongo"s hairy paw and equally firm hold of Julian"s jersey. He didn"t mean to lose either of them! The light in the torch went out completely. Now they must find their way back in black darkness.
Julian felt round for the beginning of the pa.s.sage that led back to the hole. He found it and made his way up it, feeling the sides with his hands. It wasn"t a pleasant experience at all, and Julian was thankful that he and n.o.bby had only gone a little way into the hill. It would have been like a nightmare if they had gone well in, and then found themselves unable to see the way back.
They saw a faint light shining further on and guessed it was the daylight shining down the entrance-hole. They stumbled thankfully towards it. They looked up and saw the anxious faces of the other three peering down at them, unable to see them.
"We"re back!" called Julian, beginning to climb up. "My torch went out, and we daren"t go very far. We"ve got Pongo, though."
The others helped to pull them out at the top of the hole. Julian told them about the hole in the roof of the little cave.
That"s where the men went," he said. "And tomorrow, when we"ve all bought torches, and matches and candles, that"s where we"re going, too! We"ll go down to the town and buy what we want, and come back and do a Really Good Exploration!"
"We"re going to have an adventure after all," said Anne, in rather a small voice.
""Fraid so," said Julian. "But you can stay at the farm with Mrs Mackie for the day, Anne dear. Don"t you come with us."
"If you"re going on an adventure, I"m coming, too," said Anne. "So there! I wouldn"t dream of not coming."
"All right," said Julian. "We"ll all go together. Golly, things are getting exciting!"