IT was quite a shock to have their plans spoilt. They knew there was no other room in the ruined castle that was sufficiently whole to shelter them. And they must find some sort of shelter, for although the weather was fine at the moment, it might rain hard any day-or a storm might blow up.
"And storms round about Kirrin are so very violent," said Julian, remembering one or two. "Do you remember the storm that tossed your wreck up from the bottom of the sea, George?"
"Oh yes," said George and Anne, together, and Anne added eagerly: "Let"s go and see the wreck today if we can. I"d love to see if it"s still balanced on those rocks, as it was last year, when we explored it."
"Well, first we must make up our minds where we are going to sleep," said Julian, firmly. "I don"t know if you realise it, but it"s about three o"clock in the afternoon! We slept for hours on the sand-tired out with our exciting night, I suppose. We really must find some safe place and put our things there at once, and make our beds."
"Well, but where shall we go?" said d.i.c.k. "There"s no other place in the old castle."
"There"s the dungeon below," said Anne, shivering. "But I don"t want to go there. It"s so dark and mysterious."
n.o.body wanted to sleep down in the dungeons! d.i.c.k frowned and thought hard. "What about the wreck?" he said. "Any chance of living there?"
"We might go and see," said Julian. "I don"t somehow fancy living on a damp old rotting wreck-but if it"s still high on the rocks, maybe the sun will have dried it, and it might be possible to have our bed and stores there."
"Let"s go and see now," said George. So they made their way from the ruined castle to the old wall that ran round it. From there they would be able to see the wreck. It had been cast up the year before, and had settled firmly on some rocks.
They stood on the wall and looked for the wreck, but it was not where they had expected it. "It"s moved," said Julian, in surprise. "There it is, look, on those rocks-nearer to the sh.o.r.e than it was before. Poor old wreck! It"s been battered about a good bit this last winter, hasn"t it? It looks much more of a real wreck than it did last summer."
"I don"t believe we shall be able to sleep there," said d.i.c.k. "It"s dreadfully battered. We might be able to store food there, though. Do you know, I believe we could get to it from those rocks that run out from the island."
"Yes, I believe we could," said George. "We could only reach it safely by boat last summer-but when the tide is down, I think we could climb out over the line of rocks, right to the wreck itself."
"We"ll try in about an hour," said Julian, feeling excited. "The tide will be off the rocks by then."
"Let"s go and have a look at the old well," said d.i.c.k, and they made their way back to the courtyard of the castle. Here, the summer before, they had found the entrance to the well-shaft that ran deep down through the rock, past the dungeons below, lower than the level of the sea, to fresh water.
The children looked about for the well, and came to the old wooden cover. They drew it back.
"There are the rungs of the old iron ladder I went down last year," said d.i.c.k, peering in. "Now let"s find the entrance to the dungeon. The steps down into it are somewhere near here."
They found the entrance, but to their surprise some enormous stones had been pulled across it. "Who did that?" said George, frowning. "We didn"t! Someone has been here!"
"Trippers, I suppose," said Julian. "Do you remember that we thought we saw a spire of smoke here the other day? I bet it was trippers. You know, the story of Kirrin Island, and its old castle and dungeons, and the treasure we found in it last year, was all in the newspapers. I expect one of the fishermen has been making money by taking trippers and landing them on our island."
"How dare they?" said George, looking very fierce. "I shall put up a board that says "Trespa.s.sers will be sent to prison." I won"t have strangers on our island."
"Well, don"t worry about the stones" pulled across the dungeon entrance," said Julian. "I don"t think any of us want to go down there. Look at poor old Timmy! He"s gazing at those rabbits most unhappily. Isn"t he funny?"
Timothy was sitting down behind the children, looking most mournfully at the ring of rabbits all round the weed grown courtyard. He looked at the rabbits and then he looked at George, then he looked back at-the rabbits.
"No good, Timmy," said George, firmly. "I"m not going to change my mind about rabbits. You"re not to chase them on our island."
"I expect he thinks you"re most unfair to him," said Anne. "After all, you said he might share your quarter of the island with you-and so he thinks he ought to have his share of your rabbits too!"
Everyone laughed. Timmy wagged his tail and looked hopefully at George. They all walked across the courtyard-and then Julian suddenly came to a stop.
"Look!" he said in surprise, pointing to something on the ground. "Look! Someone has been here! This is where they built a fire!"
Everyone gazed at the ground. There was a heap of wood-ash there, quite evidently left from a fire. Stamped into the ground was a cigarette end, too. There was absolutely no doubt about it-someone had been on the island!
"If trippers come here I"ll set Timmy on to them!" cried George, in a fury. "This is our own place, it doesn"t belong to anybody else at all. Timothy, you mustn"t chase rabbits here, but you can chase anybody on two legs, except us! See?"
Timmy wagged his tail at once. "Woof!" he said, quite agreeing. He looked all round as if he hoped to see somebody appearing that he could chase. But there was no one.
"I should think the tide is about off those rocks by now," said Julian. "Let"s go and see. If it is we"ll climb along them and see if we can get to the wreck. Anne had better not come. She might slip and fall, and the sea is raging all round the rocks."
"Of course I"m coming!" cried Anne, indignantly "You"re just as likely to fall as I am."
"Well, I"ll see if it looks too dangerous," said Julian They made their way over the castle wall, down to the line of rocks that ran out seawards, towards the wreck Big waves did wash over the rocks occasionally, but it seemed fairly safe.
"If you keep between me and d.i.c.k, you can come Anne," said Julian. "But you must let us help you over difficult parts, and not make a fuss. We don"t want you to fall in and get washed away."
They began to make their way along the line of rugged slippery rocks. The tide went down even farther as the; got nearer to the wreck, and soon there was very little danger of being washed off the rocks. It was possible now to get right to the wreck across the rocks-a thing they had not been able to do the summer before.
"Here we are!" said Julian at last, and he put his ham on the side of the old wreck. She was a big ship now that they were near to her. She towered above them, thick with sh.e.l.l-fish and seaweed, smelling musty and old. The water washed round the bottom part of her, but the top part was right out of the water, even when the tide was at its highest.
"She"s been thrown about a bit last winter," said George, looking at her. "There are a lot more new hole in her side, aren"t there? And part of her old mast is gone and some of the deck. How can we get up to her."
"I"ve got a rope," said Julian, and he undid a rope that he had wound round his waist. "Half a minute-I"ll make a loop and see if I can throw it round that post sticking out up there."
He threw the rope two or three times, but could not get the loop round the post. George took it from him impatiently. At the first throw she got it round the post. She was very good indeed at things like that-better than a boy in some things, Anne thought admiringly.
She was up the rope like a monkey, and soon stood on the sloping slippery deck. She almost slipped, but caught at a broken piece of deck just in time. Julian helped Anne to go up, and then the two boys followed.
"It"s a horrid smell, isn"t it?" said Anne, wrinkling up her nose. "Do all wrecks smell like this? I don"t think I"ll go and look down in the cabins like we did last time. The smell would be worse there."
So the others left Anne up on the half-rotten deck while they went to explore a bit. They went down to the smelly, seaweed-hung cabins, and into the captain"s old cabin, the biggest of the lot. But it was quite plain that not only could they not sleep there, but they could certainly not hope to store anything there, either. The whole place was damp and rotten. Julian was half afraid his foot would go through the planking at any moment.
"Let"s go up to the deck," he said. "It"s nasty down here-awfully dark too."
They were just going up, when they heard a shout from Anne, "I say! Come here, quick! I"ve found something!"
They hurried up as fast as they could, slipping and sliding on the sloping deck. Anne was standing where they had left her, her eyes shining brightly. She was pointing to something on the opposite side of the ship "What is it?" said George. "What"s the matter?" "Look-that wasn"t here when we came here before surely!" said Anne, still pointing. The others looked when she pointed. They saw an open locker at the other side o the deck, and stuffed into it was a small black trunk! How extraordinary!
"A little black trunk!" said Julian, in surprise. "No-that wasn"t there before. It"s not been there long either-it"s quite dry and new! Whoever does it belong to? And why should it be here?"
Chapter Twelve.
THE CAVE IN THE CLIFF.
CAUTIOUSLY the children made their way down the slippery deck towards the locker. The door of this had evidently been shut on the trunk but had come open, so that the trunk was not hidden, as had been intended.
Julian pulled out the little black trunk. All the children were amazed. Why should anyone put a trunk there?
"Smugglers, do you think?" said d.i.c.k, his eyes gleaming.
"Yes-it might be," said Julian, thoughtfully, trying to undo the straps of the trunk. "This would be a very good place for smugglers. Ships that knew the way could put in, cast off a boat with smuggled goods, leave them here, and go on their way, knowing that people could come and collect the goods at their leisure."
"Do you think there are smuggled goods inside the trunk?" asked Anne, in excitement. "What would there be? Diamonds? Silks?"
"Anything that has a duty to be paid on it before it can get into the country," said Julian. "Blow these straps! I can"t undo them."
"Let me try," said Anne, who had very deft little fingers. She began to work at the buckles, and in a short time had the straps undone. But a further disappointment awaited them. The trunk was well and truly locked! There were two good locks, and no keys!
"Blow!" said George. "How sickening! How can we get the trunk open now?"
"We can"t," said Julian. "And we mustn"t smash it open, because it would warn whoever it belongs to that the goods had been found. We don"t want to-warn the smugglers that we have discovered their little game. We want to try and catch them!"
"Ooooh!" said Anne, going red with excitement. "Catch the smugglers! Oh Julian! Do you really think we could?"
"Why not?" said Julian. "No one knows we are here. If we hid whenever we saw a ship approaching the island, we might see a boat coming to it, and we could watch and find out what is happening. I should think that the smugglers are using this island as a sort of dropping-place for goods. I wonder who comes and fetches them? Someone from Kirrin Village or the nearby places, I should think."
"This is going to be awfully exciting," said d.i.c.k. "We always seem to have adventures when we come to Kirrin It"s absolutely full of them. This will be the third one we have had."
"I think we ought to be getting back over the rocks, said Julian, suddenly looking over the side of the ship and seeing that the tide had turned. "Come on - we don"t want to be caught by the tide and have to stay here for hours and hours! I"ll go down the rope first. Then you come, Anne."
They were soon climbing over the rocks again, feeling very excited. Just as they reached the last stretch of rock leading to the rocky cliff of the island itself, d.i.c.k stopped.
"What"s up?" said George, pushing behind him. "Do get on!"
"Isn"t that a cave, just beyond that big rock there?" said d.i.c.k, pointing. "It looks awfully like one to me. If it was, it would be a simply lovely place to store our things in, and even to sleep in, if it was out of reach of the sea."
"There aren"t any caves on Kirrin," began George, and then she stopped short. What d.i.c.k was pointing at really did look like a cave. It was worth while seeing if it was one. After all, George had never explored this line of rocks, and so had never been able to catch sight of the cave that lay just beyond. It could not possibly be seen from the land.
"We"ll go and see," she said. So they changed their direction, and instead of climbing back the way they had come, they cut across the ma.s.s of rock and made their way towards a jutting-out part of the cliff, in which the cave seemed to be.
They came to it ,at last. Steep rocks guarded the entrance, and half hid it. Except from where d.i.c.k had seen it, it was really impossible to catch sight of it, it was so well-hidden.
. "It is a cave!" said d.i.c.k, in delight, stepping into it. "And my, what a fine one!"
It really was a beauty. Its floor was spread with fine white sand, as soft as powder, and perfectly dry, for the cave was clearly higher than the tide reached, except, possibly in a bad winter storm. Round one side of it ran a stone ledge.
"Exactly like a shelf made for us!" cried Anne, in joy. "We can put all our things here. How lovely! Let"s come and live here and sleep here. And look, Julian-we"ve even got a skylight in the roof!"
The little girl pointed upwards, and the others saw that the roof of the cave was open in one part, giving on to the cliff-top itself. It was plain that somewhere on the heathery cliff above was a hole that looked down to the cave, making what Anne called a "skylight".
"We could drop all our things down through that hole," said Julian, quickly making plans. "We would have an awful time bringing them over the rocks. If we can find that hole up there when we are out on the cliff again, we can let down everything on a rope. It"s not a very high "skylight", as Anne calls it, for the cliffs are low just here. I believe we could swing ourselves down a rope easily, so that we needn"t have the bother of clambering over the rocks to the seaward entrance we have just come in by!"
This was a grand discovery. "Our island is even more exciting than we thought," said Anne, happily. "We"ve got a beautiful cave to share now!"
The next thing to do, of course, was to go up on the cliff and find the hole that led to the roof of the cave. So out they all went, Timmy too. Timmy was funny on the slippery rocks. His feet slithered about, and two or three times he fell into the water. But he just swam across the pools he fell into, clambered out and went on again with his slithering.
"He"s like George!" said Anne, with a laugh. "He never gives up, whatever happens to him!"
They climbed up to the top of the cliff. It was easy to find the hole once they knew it was there.
"Pretty dangerous, really," said Julian, when he had found it, and was peering down. "Any one of us might have run on this cliff and popped down the hole by accident. See, it"s all criss-crossed with blackberry brambles."
They scratched their hands, trying to free the hole from the brambles. Once they had cleared the hole, they could look right down into the cave quite easily.
"It"s not very far down," said Anne. "It looks almost as if we could jump down, if we let ourselves slide down this hole."
"Don"t you do anything of the sort," said Julian. "You"d break your leg. Wait till we get a rope fixed up, hanging down into the cave. Then we can manage to get in and out easily."
They went back to the boat, and began unloading it. They took everything across to the seaward side of the island, where the cave was. Julian took a strong rope and knotted it thickly at intervals.
"To give our feet a hold as we go down," he explained. "If we drop down too quickly, we"ll hurt our hands. These knots will stop us slipping and help us to climb up."
"Let me go down first, and then you can lower all our things to me," said George. So down she went, hand over hand, her feet easily finding the thick knots, feeling for one after another. It was a good way to go down.
"How shall we get Timmy down?" said Julian. But Timothy, who had been whining anxiously at the edge of the hole, watching George sliding away from him, solved the difficulty himself.
He jumped into the hole and disappeared down it! There came a shriek from below.
"Oh! My goodness, what"s this! Oh Timmy! Have you hurt yourself?"
The sand was very soft, like a velvet cushion and Tim had not hurt himself at all. He gave himself a shake and then barked joyfully. He was with George again! He wasn"t going to have his mistress disappearing down mysterious holes without following her at once. Not Timmy!
Then followed the business of lowering down all the goods. Anne and d.i.c.k tied the things together in rugs, and Julian lowered them carefully. George untied the rope as soon as it reached her, took out the goods, and then back went the rope again to be tied round another bundle.
"Last one!" called Julian, after a long spell of really hard work. "Then down we come too, and I don"t mind telling you that before we make our beds or anything, our next job is to have a jolly good meal! It"s hours and hours since we had a meal, and I"m starving."
Soon they were all sitting on the warm soft floor of the cave. They opened a tin of meat, cut huge slices of bread and made sandwiches. Then they opened a tin of pineapple chunks and ate those, spooning them out of the tin full of sweetness and juice. After that they still felt hungry so they opened two tins of sardines and dug them out wit! biscuits. It made a really grand meal.
"Ginger-pop to finish up with please," said d.i.c.k "My word, why don"t people always have meals like this?"
"We"d better hurry up or we shan"t be able to get heather for our beds," said George, sleepily.
"Who wants heather?" said d.i.c.k, "I don"t! This lovely soft sand is all I shall want-and a cushion and a rug or two. I shall sleep better here than ever I did in bed!"