'Where are you?' No answer was returned. Some faint sheen from the trap-door lay just here, and a little further onwards, and you could have distinguished the marks of the axe in the solid stuff the dare-devils had sheered through till they came to the open. The labour was wonderful because it had been secret, it had been done in passages of blackness in long nights, with look-outs to silence the axe and hands striking fiercely, by small lantern light, against the portion they had opened by a line ruled straight by magnetic compass. But Miss Conway knew that the smugglers had run a number of tunnels, besides this long corridor, on either hand of it, extending like the antennæ of an aquatic insect. If the man had wandered into one of them, then, after she had cried aloud in vain to and from the central passage, she must return for help and lights, and make a proper search. She walked on, again paused, shrieking in her singing, ringing voice-- 'Who are you who have been caught down here?' This, however, did not last long. She had neared the orifice overlooking the sea--close to, it glowed like a lamp in the cliff side--when her cry was echoed in a loud note, and a man's shape stood between her and the light. 'Oh, there you are!' shouted the girl, greatly relieved. 'I was afraid you had got lost in one of the off avenues.' 'You are extremely kind to come to my help,' he exclaimed, approaching her. She could clearly see the movements of his shape against the disc that shone behind him. 'I don't know what I should have done. I don't know how long I've been locked up. I am very hungry, and could drink a gallon of beer. Was not I an idiot to come into this place?' 'I think you were,' she said. 'Did you pull the stone up?' 'Yes,' he answered, 'and some villain seeing me descend must have sneaked to the pit and put the stone on, for when I returned, making sure of my exit by that lighted hole yonder, lo! there was no light; all was blackness. I was without a stick, without means to knock upon it. Good heavens! what was I to do? There was only one way out, and that was over the cliff, about eighty feet of fall, as I took it.' 'What brought you here?' 'Curiosity, and,' said he, laughing, 'an inborn love of booty. I had read in my time a great deal of the old smugglers--of their shifts and ways--and knew that this and the adjacent coast contained many of their caves. I got a plan of this one from a man in your town, and entered it with a candle, and explored by candlelight; but the candle burnt out long ago. Idiot-like, I dreamt of run goods neglected, of hard specie in canvas, and tobacco in wood.' 'You never find such things,' said the girl, 'in our caves--the men were too cunning. They did not work for you or for me.' 'Pray what time is it?' 'About noon.' 'Lord! then I have been here since four o'clock yesterday afternoon!' 'It is time we got out,' she exclaimed. 'Did never a man pass below in so many hours?'