"Then see," I cried in desperation, and running dived into the pool, and rising in the cave waited a full two minutes before returning. I climbed back to Dirk and said, "See, am I puffed? I tell you...." But now he had grasped my meaning. "Come," he said excitedly, "show me." I pointed to the spot, and limping to the edge he dived. He didn't reappear. And hiding my clothes, for I didn't want the runners to have them, I plunged after Dirk, and rose almost beside him in the weedy water. "This way," I said, and swam for the side; and soon we were both clinging there, blowing vigorously. Between gasps he told me of his adventures, and I heard how the smugglers had been surprised. Their sentry had been seized and gagged, and so they hadn't been warned of the King's frigate which had appeared off the coast. Some one had betrayed them. "Not my dad," I said. "No, not him, laddie," said Dirk. "He gave us the first warning, but it was too late." "Where is he?" I asked. "Oh, he's vanished." "Yes," I said, trusting my father's resources at evasion. It was some while later when we heard voices in the cave, and I showed Dirk the cranny where he might peep through. Suddenly he uttered a great oath. "What?" I whispered. "Shhh!" Then came a tremendous echoing crash, and the sound of cheering. When all was quiet again he told me. He had seen the King's Man, the fellow who had betrayed them. "An' it was right what I was told," he said. "He had a burn across his hand, sonny. But it wasn't your dad," he added as I gave a little cry. "I saw his face, an' he's showed them the gates an' how they worked, blast him!" "How do they work?" I asked. "They'll never work no more," was all he answered. * * * * * It was some days before the coast was clear. And all the while I carried food surreptitiously to Dirk, stuffing it into the cranny from Ebb-Tide Cave. My father had quite established himself with the runners when I first arrived back at the inn. I told him my secret, and he patted me affectionately on the head. "Always make friends, Tommy," he said. But he only ventured once down to Ebb-Tide Cave, and that was with a party of runners who went to superintend the destruction of the old haunt. I went too, and saw the great gates wide. The two rocks had been perfectly balanced against each other, and as one sank down into the earth it drew the other up into the roof by a stout steel cable. It was while I was with Dirk that the runners had hacked the cable through, and the huge half of rock that should have been poised above had crashed down, and now lay along the passage. But the tunnel which my father had expected to find, opening into the side of the cave wall, wasn't there. And somehow I think he had lost interest in the place, for he questioned me little enough of the cave I had discovered; and he seemed uneasy too, barring our door strongly at night, and waking at the least scratch.