"I don"t know," said Aleck; "it certainly looks brighter to me. See how clear the arch looks with the seaweed waving about! I say, sailor, I"ve a great mind to have another try."
"No, you haven"t," growled the middy, wearily. "I can"t spare you. I"m not going to stop here and die all alone."
"You wouldn"t, for I should drag you out after me."
"Couldn"t do it after you were drowned."
"I shouldn"t be drowned," said Aleck, slowly and thoughtfully.
"Be quiet--don"t bother--I"m so tired--regularly beat out after all that trying up yonder; and so are you. I say, Aleck, I"m beginning to be afraid that we shall never see the sunshine again."
Aleck said nothing, but lay gazing sadly at the dimly-seen arch in the water, and followed the waving to and fro of the great fronds of sea-wrack, till he shuddered once or twice and seemed to feel them clinging round his head and neck, making it dark, but somehow without causing the horrible, strangling, helpless sensation he had suffered from before. In fact, it seemed to be pleasant and restful, and by degrees produced a sensation of coolness that was most welcome after the stifling heat at the top of the zigzag, which had been made worse by the odour of the burning candle.
Then Aleck ceased to think, but lay in the cool, soft darkness, till all at once he started up sitting and wondering.
"Why, I"ve been asleep," he said to himself. "Here, sailor."
"Yes; what was that?"
"I don"t know. I seemed to hear something."
"Have you been asleep?"
"Yes; have you?"
"I think so," said the middy. "We must have been. But, I say, it really is much lighter this time."
"So I thought," said Aleck. "And, I say, I can smell the fresh seaweed.
Is the arch going to be open at last?"
_Phee-ew_! came a low, plaintive whistle.
"Hear that?" cried Aleck, wildly.
"Yes, I heard it in my sleep. The place is getting open then. There it goes again. It must be a gull."
"No, no, no!" cried Aleck, wildly, his voice sounding cracked and broken from the overpowering joy that seemed to choke him. "Don"t you know what it is?"
"A seagull, I tell you."
"No, no, no! It"s Tom Bodger"s whistle. You listen now."
There was a dead silence in the cavern, save that both lads felt or heard the throbbing in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s.
"I can"t hear anything," said the middy, at last. "What was it?"
"Nothing," gasped Aleck. "I can"t--can"t whistle now."
But he made another effort to control his quivering tips, mastered them into a state of rigidity, and produced a repet.i.tion of the same low, plaintive note that had reached their ears.
Directly after, the whistle was repeated from outside, and, as Aleck produced it once more in trembling tones, the lads leaped to their feet, for, coming as it were right along the surface of the water, as if through some invisible opening, there came the welcome sound:
"Ship ahoy! Master Aleck--a--" _suck--suck--flop--flop_--a whisper, and then something like a sigh.
"It is Tom Bodger!" cried Aleck, in a voice he did not know for his own, and something seemed to clutch him about the throat, and he knelt there muttering something inaudible to himself.
CHAPTER THIRTY.
_Phee-ew! Phee-ew_! The peculiar gull-like whistle once more, to run in a softened series of echoes right up into the farthest part of the cavern. Then there came the peculiar sucking, ploshing sound as of water filling up an opening. A minute later "Ship ahoy!" from outside.
"Tom! Ahoy!" yelled Aleck, wildly.
"Ahoy, my lad! Ahoy!" and something else was cut off by the soft sucking splash of water again, while to make the lads" position more painful in their efforts to reply, twice over they were conscious of the fact that when they replied with a shout their cries did not pa.s.s through the orifice, which the water had closed.
But the tide was ebbing steadily, and the tiny arc of the rocks which showed the way in was growing more open, so that at the end of a few minutes they heard plainly:
"Where"bouts are yer, my lad?"
"In here!" shouted Aleck, but only in face of a dull _plosh_.
Another minute and the question was repeated, but from whence the lads could hardly tell, for instead of coming from the cavern mouth the words seemed to come from far up the cavern, to be followed by another splash.
It was quite half a minute before, taught by experience, Aleck shouted:
"Shut in here! Cave!"
There was another plosh, but they had proof soon after that the words had been heard, for the hail now came:
"Are yer "live, my lad?"
"Ye-es," cried Aleck. "Quite!" and then he could in his excitement hardly control a hysterical laugh at the absurdity of the question and answer.
"Thought yer was dead and gone, my lad," came now, in company with a fainter splashing.
"Tom Bodger!"
"Hullo!" came quickly.
"We"re shut in by the water."
"Who"s "we"?"
"The cutter"s midshipman and I."
"Wha-a-at! Then there arn"t nayther on yer dead and drownded, my lad?"
"No-o-o-o!"