o at once, but his long and arduous
labour, which had taken the skin from his fingers and left his whole
hands so tender that he hardly dared to touch anything, had taught him
some wisdom, especially not to throw away the opportunity for which he
had worked so hard.

And now he sat there in the darkness, wafting, so exultant that his seat
might have been a throne, instead of a worn-out sail stretched over a
mass of stone. He hugged the knees upon which his chin rested, and
gazed straight before him into the blackness, watching for the first
glow of Ram's lanthorn, and seeing as he watched the glorious sky, the
blue sea all a-ripple; the shimmer and play of a passing shoal of fish;
gulls floating without effort, now high up, now low down, their breasts
of purest white, their backs of delicate grey, and their wondering eyes
gazing at the rough-looking fisher-lad who crept out of a hole in the
face of the cliff, made his way from shelf to shelf, ever up and up till
he was on the grass at the top, where he lay down to wait till night for
fear of being seen and dragged back.

The black darkness of the great cavern quarry was all alight now with
the pictures his mind painted, and, in his delight and satisfaction, he
laughed aloud as he thought of Ram's disappointment on coming one day
and finding his prisoner flown.

It was hard work to keep from starting at once, but the midshipman felt
that if he did, his escape would be discovered at any moment, and if it
were, it was only a question of time before he would have the whole
smuggling gang after him, and he would be hunted down to a lot ten times
more bitter from the fact of his having failure to contemplate, and form
his mental food.

The rattle at last. The door dragged up, and Ram was not alone, for his
voice could be heard in conversation with Jemmy Dadd.

The boy was in capital spirits, and he was whistling merrily, his shrill
notes echoing from the flat roof as he came on swinging his lanthorn in
one hand, the basket in the other.

"Sleep?" he said, as he saw Archy's attitude. "There you are," he
continued. "I know you weren't asleep, and if you don't like to talk it
aren't my fault. Want anything else?"

No reply; Archy dare not speak.

"Oh, very well," he said, "you can do as you like. Where's t'other
basket?"

A shiver ran through the prisoner as he recollected that which he had
forgotten in his excitement: the basket which he had taken with some of