The few minutes we had been conversing had been long enough for the tide to float the boat once more, and this time I raised my hand to the root and thrusting against the tunnel-covered, weed-hung, slimy woodwork, soon had the boat's keel again in the sand, so as to prevent her being sucked out by the reflux of the tide. At times we could hear shouts, twice pistol-shots, and then we were startled by the dull, heavy report of a small cannon. "That's after the _chasse-maree_," whispered my companion; "but she sails like a witch. She's safe unless they knock a spar away." "I wish we were," I said, for I did not feel at all comfortable in our dark hole, up which we were being forced farther and farther by the increasing tide; while more than once we had to hold on tightly by the horrible slimy piles, to keep from being drawn back. "Just the place to find dead bodies," whispered my companion, evidently to startle me. "Just so," I said coldly. "Perhaps they'll find two to-morrow." "Don't croak," was the polite rejoinder; and then he was silent; but I could hear a peculiar boring noise being made, and no further attempts at a joke issued from my friend's lips. "Suppose we try and get out now?" I whispered, after another quarter of an hour's listening in the darkness, and hearing nothing but the soft rippling, and the "drip, drip" of water beyond us; while towards the mouth came the "lap, lap" of the waves against the sides of the tunnel, succeeded by a rushing noise, and the rattling of the loose mussels clustering to the woodwork, now loudly, now gently; while every light rustle of the seaweed seemed to send a shiver through me. The noise as of boring had ceased some time, and my friend now drew my attention to one of the kegs, which he had made a hole through with his knife; and never before did spirits come so welcome as at that moment. "Better try and get out now," whispered my companion. "They must be somewhere handy, though one can't see even their boat," said a strange voice, which seemed hollow and echoing along the tunnel, while the rattling of the shells and lapping of the water grew louder. All at once I raised my head, as if to feel for the hole down which the sound of the voice came, when, to my alarm, I struck it heavily against the top of the tunnel, making it bleed against the shelly surface. "Wait a bit," said my companion thickly; "they're on the look-out yet; it's madness to go out." And I then heard a noise which told me that he was trying to drown consciousness in the liquor to which he had made his way.