ar."

"Not too nigh it is, sir," said Dick, with a sigh; and a minute later
the word was given, and they went on once more.

One hundred, two hundred, three hundred yards, but no sign.

Then a discovery was made, and by the midshipman.

They had come to the descent on the far side of the vast hill by whose
top they had been searching. There was a stiff slope beyond, and
another mass of cliff loomed up, rising dimly against the sky, in a way
that made Archy feel certain that, though so far their search had been
in vain, they had now before them the huge cliff which held the
smugglers' store.

The midshipman felt so assured of this, that he whispered his belief
freely to Gurr, as he encountered him from time to time perambulating
the line of men, but the old master received the communication rather
surlily.

"All guess-work, my lad," he said. "We're working wrong way on. These
great places would puzzle a monkey, and we shan't find the hole unless
we come by daylight, and leave a boat off-shore to signal to us till we
get over the spot."

"What's that?" cried Archy excitedly, as one of the men on his left
uttered a sharp, "Look out!"

"Sheep, I think, sir."

"No, it was a dog," said another.

"Hi! Stop him!" cried a third. "Boy!"

There was a rush here and there in the darkness, the line being
completely broken, and the men who composed it caught sight from time to
time of a shadowy figure to which they gave chase as it dodged in and
out of the bushes, doubling round masses of weather-worn stone, plunging
into hollows, being lost in one place and found in another, but always
proving too active for its pursuers, who stumbled about among the rough
ground and dangerous slopes. Here for a moment it was lost in a damp
hollow full of a high growth of mares-tail (_equisetum_), that curious
whorled relic of ancient days; driven from that by a regular course of
beating the ground, it led its pursuers upward among rough tumbled
stones where the brambles tripped them, and here they lost it for a
time. But, growing hotter in the chase, and delighted with the sport,
which came like a relief from their monotonous toil, the Jacks put their
quarry up again, to get a dim view of it, and follow it in full cry,
like a pack of hounds, over the rounded top of the hill, down the other
side into a damp hollow full of tall reeds, through which the men had to
beat again, panting and regaining their breath, but too excited by t