"Ay, ay, sir!" cheered the men.

"Now, then," shouted Gurr, "do you surrender?"

A derisive laugh came from the smugglers, who pulled their hardest,
pretty closely followed by the king's boat, when, just as they seemed to
be coming stem on to the rocks at the foot of the cliff, the four men on
the starboard side suddenly plunged their oars down deep, backing water,
while the men on the larboard pulled furiously, the result being that
the head of the boat swung round, and she glided right out of sight
behind a tall rock, which seemed part of the main cliff from a few yards
out.

A fierce cry of rage came from the master, but he was quick at giving
directions, checking the course of his boat, and then proceeding
cautiously; and having no difficulty in following under a low archway
for some twenty yards,--a passage evidently only possible at extreme low
water,--and directly after they were out again in broad daylight, and at
the bottom of a huge funnel-like hollow, from which the rocky cliffs
rose up some three hundred feet.

It was a marvellously beautiful spot, but the occupants of the _White
Hawk's_ boat had only eyes then for the smugglers, who had run their
boat into a nook just across the bottom of the pool, and they had had
time to leap on to the rock, and were rapidly climbing a rough zigzag
path.

"And us never to have been along here at the right time of the tide to
find this hole!" thought Archy, as, in obedience to a sign, he steered
the boat across the beautiful transparent pool, and laid her alongside
the smugglers boat.

Then oars were thrown down, the men sprang across the smugglers' craft,
and, headed by Archy and Gurr, began to climb rapidly after their
enemies.

"It's of no use to call upon them to surrender," said Gurr rather
breathlessly, as they toiled up the zigzag.

"We'll make them do it later on," cried Archy, whose youth and activity
helped him to get on first.

"Steady, my lad, steady!"

"But I want to see which way they go."

"Right, but keep out of danger, my lad. If they show fight, keep back."

Archy heard, but made no reply, and toiled on up the rugged ascent,
straining every nerve as he saw the last smuggler disappear over the
top, and, at the next turn he made in the zigzag, he caught a glimpse of
the ascent from top to bottom, with the sailors climbing up, and just
then there was a fresh cheer, which made him turn swiftly again, to look
round and see the second boat gli