This discovery cheered me, as the cave would before long be visited by the owner of the piece. Taking the musket in my hand I felt the pan, removed the powder from it, then cocked the hammer. On pulling the trigger the flash of the flint gave a tolerable illumination. This action I repeated several times, till I could form some idea of the cave. In the part opposite where I was standing I saw more weapons, several large casks, and bundles of what looked like woollen and silk goods. Then the truth flashed across my mind: I was in one of the storehouses of the Tilly Whim smugglers! Replacing the musket where I found it, I made my way cautiously towards the barrels. Here I felt about carefully, till my hand alighted on an opened box of coarse biscuits, which served as a meal, as I was wellnigh spent with hunger. Then, after a drink from the water that trickled through the roof of the cave, I resumed my tour of inspection. Groping on, my knees came in contact with a large wooden box. Its contents were apparently hay and straw, but curiosity prompted me to plunge my hand through the upper surface, and it was no surprise to me to find that underneath was a thick layer of silk. The box or crate was some six or seven feet in length and three in breadth, the depth being about the same as the breadth; so its contents must have been worth several hundreds of pounds. While engaged in my investigations I heard the sound of footsteps and voices. The smugglers were coming to their storehouse! There was not a moment to be lost, and rapidly making up my mind, I burrowed underneath the hay and straw, and concealed myself on the layers of silk. The sound of shuffling feet drew nearer, there was a noise like the throwing back of a curtain, and the cave was flooded with a subdued daylight. The men feared no interruption, for they were singing a lusty song in broad Dorset dialect, the chorus of which ran: "He used to laugh a horrible laugh, His fav’rite cry was ’Priddys’, His life he held in his own right arm, His soul was Cap’n Kiddie’s!" Often in my younger days had old Henry Martin and Master Collings told me tales of a buccaneering Captain Kidd and his bloodthirsty henchman, a renegade Scotsman called Angus Priddys, whose career was ended at Execution Dock; so I formed a conclusion that these smugglers were men whose illicit dealings were not the worst of their accomplishments. Through a knot hole in the side of the box I could see the whole of the rascally crew.