Five Run Away Together (9 page)

"If you keep between me and Dick, 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 shell-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?"

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 Dick, 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 Dick. "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, Dick stopped.

"What's up?" said George, pushing behind him. "Do get on!"

"Isn't that a cave, just beyond that big rock there?" said Dick, 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 Dick 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 mass 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 Dick had seen it, it was really impossible to catch sight of it, it was so well-hidden.

. "It is a cave!" said Dick, 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 Dick 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 Dick "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 Dick, "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!"

So the rugs and cushions were spread out on the sandy floor of the cave. A candle was lighted as it grew dark, and the four sleepy children looked at one another.

Timmy, as usual, was with George.

"Good-night," said George. "I can't keep awake another minute. "Good-night, ev . . .

ery . . . body . . . good . . . night!"

A DAY ON THE ISLAND

THE children hardly knew where they were the next day when they woke up. The sun was pouring into the cave entrance, and fell first of all on George's sleeping face. It awoke her and she lay half-dozing, wondering why her bed felt rather less soft than usual.

"But I'm not in my bed—I'm on Kirrin Island, of course!" she thought suddenly to herself. She sat up and gave Anne a punch. "Wake up, sleepy-head! We're on the island!"

Soon they were all awake rubbing the sleep from their eyes. "I think I'm going to get heather today for my bed, after all," said Anne. "The sand feels soft at first, but it gets hard after a bit."

The others agreed that they would all get heather for their beds, set on the sand, with rugs for covering. Then they would have really fine beds.

"It's fun to live in a cave," said Dick. "Fancy having a fine cave like this on our island, as well as a castle and dungeons! We arc really very lucky."

"I feel sticky and dirty," said Julian. "Let's go and have a bathe before we have breakfast. Then cold ham, bread, pickles and marmalade for me!"

"We shall be cold after our bathe," said George. "We'd better light my little stove and put the kettle on to boil while we're bathing. Then we can make some hot cocoa when we come back shivering!"

"Oh yes," said Anne, who had never boiled anything on such a tiny stove before. "Do let's. I'll fill the kettle with water from one of the containers. What shall we do for milk?"

"There's a tin of milk somewhere in the pile," said Julian. "We can open that. Where's the tin-opener?"