had been at several of the runs, and of course you are
in with some of our fellows. How did you get to know about the entrance
to this place?"

"I only knew that there was a cave here, that it was used by the
smugglers, and that it had an entrance somewhere. The man who told me
knew well that I was to be trusted, but it was only because you
disappeared among those bushes, and that there were no footprints to
show that you had left them, that it appeared to me that the passage
might be there, and so I looked about until I found the handle to the
trap-door."

"Why didn't you go and call the coast-guard? There was a station not a
quarter of a mile away."

"Because I could not have done that without betraying the secret of the
cavern. I found the entrance myself, but I should never have done so, if
I had not been told about the cave and the secret passage, and I felt
that it would be an act of treachery to betray it."

"And you were really fool enough to think that if you captured me
single-handed I should walk with you like a lamb to the gallows?"

"I didn't intend to give you a chance of making a fight. I intended to
rush straight in and covered you with my gun."

"Well, you have plenty of pluck, young fellow, if you haven't much
wisdom; but if you think that after getting in here, I shall let you go
out again to bring the constables down on me you are mistaken
altogether."

CHAPTER IV

THE SMUGGLER'S CAVE

Joe Markham had, as soon as he arrived, told the French smugglers that
he had shot the magistrate who had for the last five or six years given
them so much trouble and caused them so much loss, and who had, as the
last affair showed, become more dangerous than ever, as he could only
have obtained information as to the exact point of landing by having
bribed someone connected with them.

"It was a case of his life or our business," he said. "If he had not
been got out of the way we must have given up the trade altogether on
this part of the coast; besides, he has been the cause, not only of
several seizures of cargoes, but of the death of eight or ten of our
comrades and of the imprisonment of many others. Now that he is out of
the way we shall find things a great deal easier."

"It served him right," the leader of the party said, "and you have
rendered good service; but what are you going to do? Do you think that
any suspicion will fall upon you?"

"Yes; I have put myself in an awkward position,