“Goodness, George! Whatever shall we do now?” said Jack anxiously. “We can never clear that fall - it looks as if the roof has fallen in for yards! We can’t go back to the Old House - we’d just be walking into danger!”
George rubbed his chin and thought hard. They couldn’t go forward - they couldn’t go back - and certainly they couldn’t stay in the middle!
“Seems as if we’d better go and have a look at that other blocked-up passage,” said George at last. “You know - the one that branches off this one to join the secret way between the shore-cave and the cellars of the Old House.”
“Right,” said Jack. “The block there may not be so bad as it looks. It’s our only chance anyway.”
They all went to the place where the passage branched off. They squeezed down it till they came to the block. George pulled away some of the stones and tried to see how much of the passage was stopped up.
“I believe if the four of us could work at it we might clear it in time,” said George at last. “And I’ve got a good idea too - the block is mostly of stones and bits of rock. If I pick them up, pass them to Jack, and he passes them to Paul and Paul to Mike, Mike could pile them up behind him and make them look as if there has been a good old roof-fall there! So if Mr. Diaz does come along he’ll think it’s impossible to come this way. And we’ll be safely on the other side of the stones!”
“Good old George!” said Mike and Jack, who always loved a good idea. “Come on - we’ll start.”
“What do I do?” asked Paul, who was half-frightened, half-thrilled at being with the others. They told him what to do.
“You only just take hold of the stones I pass you,” said Jack, “and pass them behind to Mike.”
They set to work. George cleared away the stones, passing them to the others. Mike threw them behind him, and soon a great pile lay there, looking exactly as if they had fallen from the roof of the passage!
Soon George had cleared away quite a bit of the block. He shone his torch up and down it, and gave a cry of joy.
“I believe it’ll be all right, boys! I can see the passage beyond already. We’ll only need to clear a bit more, and we shall have a hole big enough to squeeze through.”
They worked and worked. Paul became tired and they had to let him have a rest. Two hours went by. George felt rather anxious. He did not want Mr. Diaz to discover that Paul and Mike had escaped before they had all got safely away in the boat.
At last there was a hole big enough to squeeze through. One by one they got through it, and then George did a funny thing.
He glanced up at the roof near the block and then, taking a big stone, he struck the roof hard. A shower of earth fell at once.
“George! What are you doing?” cried Jack.
“I’m just making a small roof-fall,” grinned George, his teeth flashing in the light of Jack’s torch. “If I can fill up the hole we’ve made in the block, we’ll be all right. We don’t want our dear friend Mr. Diaz to squeeze through the hole too!”
“Good idea,” said Jack. “Now hadn’t we better go on, George? It’s getting late.”
“Sh!” said George suddenly. Everyone stood perfectly quiet in the passage. “Switch off your torches,” whispered George. “I can hear something.”
They all switched off their torches. Sounds were coming near - voices - angry voices!
“Oh, do let’s go,” whispered Mike. But George shook his head in the darkness and whispered “No.”
“We don’t want them to hear us,” he said in a low tone. “They may guess where this leads to if they hear us, and go rushing off to the beach to find our boat. I think we’re safe enough if we keep quiet. Put your arm round Paul, Jack - he’s frightened, poor kid!”
They stood there in perfect silence. They heard Mr. Diaz and Luiz and someone else talking. They came to the roof-fall in the other passage and exclaimed about it.
“Look at that! They can’t have gone down that way!”
“It might have fallen after they had gone,” said the sleepy voice of Luiz. Then a sharper voice spoke loudly.
“This is disgraceful - to let the boy slip through your fingers like this! Are you sure there is no other way out of this passage?”
“There’s a branch off it somewhere here,” came Luiz’s voice. Footsteps came up to the blockage through which George and the others had managed to squeeze.
“There’s a great pile of stones here,” said Mr. Diaz, peering over the stones that the boys had piled up. “And another roof-fall or something beyond. They couldn’t possibly have got through that. No, it looks as if they escaped down that passage to Peep-Hole, and the roof fell after they had gone through. Well, our best course is to go back to the Old House and make a raid on Peep-Hole. The boys are sure to be there.”
The voices and the footsteps grew fainter. At last they could no longer be heard. Everybody sighed with relief.
“Now we can get on,” said George cheerfully. “I thought somehow they wouldn’t guess we’d gone this way - and anyway they don’t know that it leads down to the passage to the shore-cave. Come on!”
They stumbled down the secret passage and at last came to an opening in the ground at their feet. Jack shone his torch down.
“This is where our passage joins the shore-passage,” he cried in excitement. “We’ll have to jump down into it. No wonder we didn’t spot it when we used the shore-passage - we didn’t dream of looking for holes in the roof, did we?”
They all jumped down into the passage below. Then they made their way quickly to the cave, sliding down into it, holding safely to the rope that swung there to help them.
“I wonder if the girls are there in the boat all right,” said Mike.
The girls were there! They had been there for hours, anxiously waiting with Dimmy. They had not been able to imagine what could have happened to everyone!
They had talked at first, and then had watched and waited for the boys. But they hadn’t come. Then Nora had begun to worry.
“Oh dear! They ought to be here now. Whatever can have happened?”
“Perhaps Mr. Diaz or someone was in the room for ages with Mike and Paul,” said Peggy sensibly. “Jack and George couldn’t possibly rescue them if anyone was with the others.”
“That’s true,” said Dimmy. “Well, we must wait in patience. We can’t do anything else! Are you two warm enough?”
“I’m glad of my coat,” said Peggy. “It’s a funny thing, but excitement makes me feel rather cold!”
They waited for another hour. Now all of them were anxious and worried, though Dimmy tried not to show it. Then Nora gave a low cry.
“Look! I can see the light of a torch over there in the shore-cave! It must be them!”
It was! Jack, Mike, Paul, and George hurried across the sand in silence. They were tired and stiff now, but they knew that a long row awaited them! They were pleased that everything had at last gone well.
“Oh, Mike, dear Mike!” said Nora joyfully, so glad to have her brother back again that the tears fell down her cold cheeks. Mike hugged her and Peggy kissed kind old Dimmy, and got into the boat with the others. It was a good thing it was a big boat!
“I must say good-bye,” said Dimmy hurriedly. “Don’t push off yet, George - you’ve forgotten I’m not going with you!”
“Oh, Dimmy, I wish you were coming too,” said Peggy, sad to say good-bye to her, “I hope you’ll be all right. Anyway, George will be with you as soon as he rows the boat back from Longrigg.”
“Good-bye, dears,” whispered Dimmy. She got out of the boat. “Take care of yourselves. I’ll let you know as soon as we have found out about Prince Paul, and what we must do with him, Good luck!”
“Good luck!” whispered the children. George pushed off from the little wooden jetty. The boat floated out on the water. George bent to the oars and began to row away. Soon nothing could be seen of Dimmy at all - she had vanished into the darkness.
The boat went on and on over the dark, restless sea. Jack had found the second pair of oars and was rowing too, to help George. The children spoke to one another in whispers, because George said voices carried so far over the water.
“Well, we’ve rescued you, Paul!” said Jack. “You’re safe with us now! And I don’t somehow think that dear Mr. Diaz will be able to find you on our secret island! We’ll have a nice little holiday there for a few days - and oh, won’t it be lovely to be back there again, all by ourselves!”
“Lovely, lovely, lovely!” said the others, and began to dream about their island. Soon, soon, they would be there!