him. No; I'll rock the boat."

Suiting the action to the word, Dick gave the boat a rock whose result
was to bump it hardly against a rock, and then there was a loud start
out of the darkness a few feet away, and then the boat bumped again.

"Why, halloa! what cheer--eh? What?"

"Why, you've been to sleep, Josh."

"No; on'y just closed my eyes," cried Josh; "on'y just shut 'em a
moment;" though the fact was Josh had been asleep a long way over an
hour. "Master 'most done?"

"I don't know," said Dick; "I know I'm precious tired of waiting."

"Tell 'ee what," said Josh suddenly, as he began to feel about with an
oar as the boat swayed more up and down, and was carried a little
towards where Mr Temple was standing, and then drawn back; "tide's
coming in fast."

"Why, Will," said Mr Temple just at the same moment, "how's this? That
ledge was bare--"

"Now it's six inches under water, sir," replied Will. "I think we ought
to get out at once."

"Stop a few minutes longer," said Mr Temple; "there is evidently the
outcrop of a vein here. Hold the light."

Will obeyed at once, and Mr Temple began chipping at a fresh block of
quartz rock which projected from the cave wall at an angle.

"Yes; copper this time," said Mr Temple.

"Father," cried Dick, "Josh thinks we had better get out again now. The
tide's rising."

"I'll be done directly," said Mr Temple. "The tide will not run so
high that we cannot pull against it."

"Tide's coming in gashly fast," said Josh to himself; "but if he don't
mind, I don't."

Twice more Dick spoke to his father about coming, for Josh was muttering
very sourly, and seemed disposed to resent this hanging back when he
suggested that it would be better to go; but Mr Temple was so deeply
interested in his discovery of what seemed to be a promising and, as far
as he could for the moment tell, absolutely a new vein, that he forgot
everything else in his intense desire to break off as good a specimen of
the rock as he could.

"There," he said at last in a tone of triumph, "I think that will do.
Steady, Dick, take these pieces. Now, you, my lad, go forward to your
place. We'll hold the lanthorn, and--why, how's this? the ceiling seems
to be lower."

"But it aren't," growled Josh sourly; "it's the gashly tide come in.
There," he said, as he thrust the boat round an angle which had hidden
the entrance of the cavern, "the boat won't go through there."

"Through there?" cried Mr T