Menhardoc Part 36

He stepped in over the sh.e.l.ly sand which filled up the vacancies between the rocks that strewed the floor, and d.i.c.k stepped in after him.

Will turned and looked half-mockingly at Josh as he stepped in next.

"Oh! well, I can't stand that," growled Josh. "Here goes."

He moistened both of his hands as if he were going to get a grip of some rope or spar, and then hurried in, leaving Arthur alone at the mouth of the zorn, peering in at the dancing light and the strange shadows cast upon the glistening stone of roof and wall.

"Shall I go in?" he said to himself. "I know d.i.c.k will laugh at me if I don't."

Then he hesitated: the place looked so dark and cold and forbidding, while without it was so light and bright and suns.h.i.+ny.

"I sha'n't go," he muttered. "Let him laugh if he likes, and that Cornish fisher-boy as well. I don't see why I should go into the nasty old cellar."

Then he peered in, and thought that he would like to go in just a little way; and stretching out one leg he was about to set his foot down when there was a black shadow cast at his feet, a rus.h.i.+ng noise, and something came quite close, uttered a harsh cry, and dashed off.

Arthur Temple bounded back into the broad suns.h.i.+ne with his heart beating painfully; and even when he saw that it was one of the great black fis.h.i.+ng-birds that had dipped down and dashed off again he was not much better.

"I wish I were not so nervous!" he muttered; and he looked about hastily.

"I'm glad no one was here, though," he added. "How d.i.c.k would have laughed! Now I'll follow them in. No, I won't. I'll say I wanted to fish;" and s.n.a.t.c.hing at this idea he ran down to the boat, got in, and arranging the line, gave the lead a swing and threw it seaward, so that it should fall in the deep channel among the rocks, where there was not the slightest likelihood of his getting a fish.

But it requires some skill to throw out lead attached to a fis.h.i.+ng-line, especially when there are ten or twelve feet of line between the lead and the hook.

Hence it was then that when Arthur Temple swung the lead to and fro, and finally let it go seaward, there was a sharp tug and a splash, the lead falling into the water about a couple of yards from the stern, and the hook sticking tightly in the gunwale of the boat.

"Bother!" exclaimed Arthur angrily as he proceeded to haul the lead in, and then to extricate the hook, whose bait wanted rearranging, while the hook itself was a good deal opened out in drawing it from the wood.

He got all right at last, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his face a good deal at having to replace the bait, and then stopping to wash his hands very carefully and wipe them upon his pocket-handkerchief. This done, he smelt his fingers.

"Pah!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed; and he proceeded to wash and wipe them again before rearranging the line; and then after swinging the lead to and fro four or five times, he let it go, giving it a tremendous jerk, which recoiled so upon his frame, and caused the boat to swerve so much, that he nearly fell overboard, and only saved himself by throwing himself down and catching at the thwarts.

"Bother the beastly, abominable old boat!" he cried angrily as he scrambled up, and with all the pettishness of a spoiled child, kicked the side with all his might, a satisfactory proceeding which resulted in the wood giving forth a hollow sound, and a painful sensation arising from an injured toe.

He felt a little better, though, after getting rid of this touch of spite, and he smiled with satisfaction, too, for the lead had descended some distance off in the water, and with a self-complacent smile Arthur Temple sat down on the edge of the boat and waited for a bite.

"This is better than getting wet and dirty in that cavern," he said.

"It's warm and suns.h.i.+ny, and old d.i.c.k will be as savage as savage if he finds that I've caught three or four good fish before he comes. Was that a touch?"

It did not seem to be, so Arthur sat patiently on waiting for the bite, and sometimes looking over the side, where, in the clear water, half-hidden by a shelf of rock, he could see what at first made him start, for it looked like an enormous flat spider lying about three feet down, watching him with a couple of eyes like small peas, mounted, mushroom-fas.h.i.+on, on a stalk.

"Why, it's an old crab," he said; "only a small one, though. Ugh! what a disgusting-looking beast!"

He remained watching the crab for some few minutes, and then looked straight along the line, which washed up and down on a piece of rock as the waves came softly in, bearing that peculiar sea-weedy scent from the sh.o.r.e. Then he had another look at the crab, and could distinctly see its peculiar water-breathing apparatus at work, playing like some piece of mechanism about its mouth, while sometimes one claw would be raised a little way, then another, as if the mollusc were sparring at Arthur, and asking him to come on.

"Ugh! the ridiculous-looking little monster!" he muttered. "I wonder how long they'll be! What a while it is before I get a bite!"

But he did not get a bite all the same. For, in the first place, there were none but very small fish in and about the rocks--little wra.s.se, and blennies wherever the bottom was sandy, and tiny crabs scuffling in and out among the stones, where jelly-fish were opening and shutting and expanding their tentacles in search of minute food.

In the second place, Arthur sat on fis.h.i.+ng, happily unconscious of the fact that he was in a similar position to the short-sighted old man in the caricature. This individual is by a river side comfortably seated beneath a tree, his rod horizontally held above the water, but his line and float, where he has jerked them, four or five feet above his head in an overhanging bough.

There were no overhanging boughs near Arthur, and no trees; but when he threw in his line the lead had gone into a rock-pool, the hook had stopped in a patch of sea-weed on a rock high and dry, and the bait of squid was being nicely cooked and frizzled in the sun.

"I think it wants a new bait," said our fisherman at last very importantly; and, drawing in the line, the lead came with a b.u.mp up against the side of the boat, while the bait was dragged through the water, and came in thoroughly wet once more.

"I thought so," said Arthur complacently as he examined the shrunken bait. "Something has been at it and sucked all the goodness away. I wish that fisher-boy was here to put on a fresh one."

But that fisher-boy was right in the cavern, so Arthur had to put on a fresh bait himself. This done, and very badly too, he took the line in hand once more, stood up on the thwart, spreading his legs wide apart to steady himself, because the boat rocked; and then, after giving the heavy lead a good swing, sent it off with a thrill of triumph, which rapidly changed to a look of horror, accompanied by a yell of pain.

"Oh! oh! oh! oh!" cried Arthur. "My leg! my leg! my leg! Oh! help!

help! help!" and sitting down in the boat he began to drag in the line rapidly, as he thoroughly realised the fact that he had caught a very large and a very odd fish this time.

Note: Zorn, the Cornish name for a sea-cave.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

PILCHAR' WILL PERFORMS A SURGICAL OPERATION; WHICH IS FOLLOWED BY A WET WALK HOME.

While Arthur had been amusing himself by fis.h.i.+ng, with the result just told, his father had penetrated into the cave, closely followed by d.i.c.k, Will, and lastly by Josh.

"I'll see fair for 'em anyhow," Josh said; and wetting his hands once more, he followed the dancing light, closing up directly after Will.

"Shall we find anything here, father?" said d.i.c.k as his eyes wandered over the dimly-seen ma.s.ses of rugged rock above his head.

"Perhaps," said his father--"perhaps not. I want to find traces of some good vein of ore; I don't care what, so long as it is well worth working. Of course this place has been thoroughly explored before,--at least I should expect so,--but changes are always taking place. Rock sh.e.l.ls off in time; great pieces fall and lay bare treasures that have never before been seen."

"Treasures, father?" cried d.i.c.k eagerly.

"Yes, treasures. Not buried treasures--Spanish doubloons or ingots, my boy, but nature's own treasures. We may as well hunt in all sorts of places, for I mean to find something worth working before I have done."

"I say, father, isn't it all stuff and nonsense about anything living in a cave like this?"

"What--of the hobgoblin kind, d.i.c.k?"

"Yes, father."

Mr Temple did not answer for a few moments, and then he replied in the same low tone as that in which his son had asked the question.

"For shame, d.i.c.k!" he said softly.

That was all.

d.i.c.k felt it as a severe rebuke, and did not speak for a minute or two as they went on winding in and out among the rocks, with the roof rapidly curving down, and the floor, which was sandy no longer, seeming to rise as the sides of the cave contracted and the travelling had become an awkward climb.

"I don't believe any of that stuff, father," said d.i.c.k softly.