to what
they are going to do, see if you can get any information, but be on your
guard, as they'll send you, perhaps, on some fool's errand."

"Ay, ay, sir!" cried Archy again, as he took the handle of the tiller.
"Now, my lads, give way!"

The mist was patchy, thin here and thick there, but it seemed an easy
task to overtake the boat, which had glided into the fog, going slowly,
with her little sail set, and with only a man and boy for crew. She was
about a mile away from the cutter, and about a quarter of that distance
from the land when she passed out of sight, and the possibility of not
overtaking her never entered the midshipman's head. All the same,
though, he was well enough trained in his duties to make him keep a
sharp look-out on either side, as they crept in, to make sure that the
boat did not slip away under the cliffs to right or left unseen.

The mist grew more dense as they neared the towering cliffs. Then it
seemed to become thinner, and, just as the midshipman was thinking to
himself how glorious it would be if the man and boy in the boat should
prove to be his old friends Ram and Jemmy Dadd, there came a peculiar
squeaking sound from somewhere ahead.

"Lowering sail, sir," said Dirty Dick, who was pulling first oar.

"Then we have not missed them," thought Archy, as the men pulled
steadily on, with the rushing, plunging noise of the waves beginning to
be heard as they washed the foot of the cliffs. "I'll be bound to say
it is Ram and that big scoundrel. Oh, what a chance to get them aboard
in irons and under hatches, for them to have a taste of what they gave
me!"

It seemed perfectly reasonable that those two should have been off
somewhere in a boat, and were now returning. Who more likely to be
making for the ledge, which, as far as he could judge, was a point or
two off to the right.

All at once, after a few minutes' pulling, the boat glided right out of
the bank of mist which hung between them like a soft grey veil, while in
front, lit up by the first beams of the morning sun, was the great wall
of cliff, the ledge over which the waves washed gently, the green
pasture high up, and the ledges dotted with grey and white gulls. The
picture was lovely in the extreme, but it wanted two things in Archy's
eyes to make it perfect; and those two things were a background formed
by the great cliff, down which he had crept, and the feature which would
have given it life and interest--to wit, th