He waited for several hours. About midnight he rose to go home. As he did so he was startled by the sound of oars, and lying down perceived a small boat approaching on a silver patch of moonlit sea. The moon came out, and he saw that the occupant of the boat was a solitary man. It approached rapidly, making direct for the Devil’s Cauldron. Lying down on his face and peeping over, Brinkley saw it stop short just outside the foaming passage, while the man stood up, stooped, lifted something heavy from the bottom, and threw it overboard. Then, after watching for a moment a dark object which drifted shoreward, right into the Cauldron, he rowed away until he reached a sheltered creek close to the scene of the swimming adventure. Here he ran the boat ashore and leapt out. The next minute Brinkley heard him coming up the cliffs, trembling with excitement he lay down flat on his face and waited. Presently the man emerged on the top of the cliffs, within a few yards of Brinkley’s hiding-place. Just then the moon flashed brightly out, and Brinkley recognized him. It was William Jones, carrying on his shoulders something like a loaded sack, and dangling from his left wrist, a horn lantern. He looked round once or twice and then hurried towards the sand-hills. Brinkley followed stealthily. The moon now went in, and it became pitch dark. Presently Jones paused, set down his load, and lit the lantern; then he hurried on. For fifty or sixty yards a coarse carpet of green sward covered the cliffs; then the sandhills began. Passing over the first sand-hill, Jones disappeared. Quick as thought the young man followed, and, peering over, saw the light in the hollow beneath; it rose higher and higher till it reached the top of the next sand-hill, where it paused. Crawling on hands and knees Brinkley slipped down into the hollow, and then crept upward; halfway up the mound he found a huge rock, behind which he crouched and peeped. As he did so, William Jones, light in hand, seemed to dive down into the solid earth and disappear. For a minute after the disappearance, Charles Brinkley lay as if petrified; and, indeed, he was altogether lost in wonder. What had happened? Had an earthquake swallowed the mysterious one, or had he tumbled down in a fit? Brinkley waited and watched, five minutes had passed, ten minutes, and still the light did not re-emerge. At last, overcome by his curiosity, Brinkley rose, and, stooping close to the ground, crept from the rock behind which he had lain concealed, and crawled across the summit of the sand-hill. Suddenly he stopped short, and went down on hands and knees, for he now clearly discerned, coming out of the solid earth or sand, the glimmer of the light. It glimmered, then disappeared again. Just then the moon came out of her cloud, illuminating the hillocks with vitreous rays; and he perceived close by him a dark hole opening into the very heart of the hillock.