t awash; and as they rowed,
they saw the lieutenant and the midshipman enter the light gig, four men
dropped their oars in the water, and with the drops flashing from the
blades, the gig came swiftly after them.

"Why, they're coming here too, Jemmy," said Ram, as they reached the
ledge, and leaped on to the ammonite-studded stone, over which the water
glided and then ran back.

"Well, let 'em," said Jemmy, following suit with the painter, the cow
standing contentedly with her eyes half-closed. "Don't matter to us,
lad, so long as they didn't come last night."

They made fast the hawser to an iron stanchion, one of several dotted
about and pretty well hidden by the water, climbed up on the rock, and
sat down in the warm sunshine to wait for the turn of the tide, while
after a pull in one direction, the gig's course was altered, and they
saw its course changed again.

"I liked that chap," said Ram, as he gazed across a few hundred yards of
smooth water, at where Archy sat in his uniform, steering.

"What are they up to?" said Jemmy, shading his eyes. Then quite
excitedly, "Say, lad, lookye yonder," he whispered.

"I was looking," cried Ram excitedly; "they've picked up a brandy keg."

There was no denying the fact; and as the dripping little barrel was
placed by one of the men in the fore part of the gig, the others gave
way, and the light vessel came rapidly now toward the ledge.

Archy was shading his eyes just then, and pointing out something to the
lieutenant a little to the left of where Ram and his companion were
seated, and the boy's eyes, trained by his nefarious habits, gazed
sharply in search of danger or criminating evidence, in the direction
the midshipman pointed.

A chill of horror ran through him, for there, with the wash of the tide
half covering and then leaving them bare, were two more brandy kegs,
which had been missed the previous night during the fog.

"Ah!" ejaculated Ram, as in imagination he saw the well-filled vault,
and the crew of the cutter being marched up to make a seizure, and
arrest his father perhaps.

If he could but get away and give the alarm!

CHAPTER SEVEN.

"Get away, and give the alarm?"

How could we?

There was no rope and pulley up on the cliff now, and the boat was
occupied by the cow; while, even if it had been empty, it would have
meant a six mile row to reach a landing-place at that time of the tide,
and an eight miles' walk back.

And here was the