"Thank you, sir," said Phelan, sullenly. "Neither would I--in a cave; but if it came to anything between man and man----" "I know," broke in O'Brien, with a laugh, "you'd be glad to risk your neck to satisfy your anger." He had suddenly regained his good humour. "That's it," said Phelan, laconically, as the yawl moved on. Paulton looked in surprise from one to the other. O'Brien smiled and shook his head to reassure him, but said nothing. Visibly the spirits of the little party were damped. At length they were opposite the much-dreaded Whale's Mouth. The two rowers, at the request of O'Brien, peaked their oars a few fathoms out of the direct set of the in-draught, now at its greatest strength. The wall of rock, in which the opening of the cave appeared, was at this time of tide almost square, and considerably wider than the yawl was long. Nothing could be more harmless-looking than the Mouth. Its sides were smooth and almost perpendicular. No huge mass of rock hung threateningly on high; the water beneath was pellucid, green, gentle. No awful sounds issued from that Mouth. The internal sounds told of little disturbance or danger. No sign of conflict appeared on the sides of the Mouth or the water, or in the soft olive depths below. In the heat of summer a stranger would have found it almost impossible to deny himself the luxurious refreshment of repose in the moist twilight of that water-cave. No teeth were visible; but the lithe, subtle, unceasing, undulating tongue was there--the polished, subtle water. It rose and fell, seemingly, as the water round it, in indolent, purposeless indifference; and looking at the water merely, it seemed to make no greater progress onward than the water outside and around. Yet the gentle swelling and hollowing of the waves had a purpose underlying, though they seemed, like other waves, to move tardily, almost imperceptibly forward. But here the water was dragged onward occultly by some power, and for some purpose unknown. The roof of the Mouth and the jaws were powerless for evil. No teeth were visible in this gigantic Mouth, but the unsuspected, oily, slimy water was there lying in wait for the unwary, and fatal to all things that touched it. It was the tongue of the ant-bear that attracts, enfolds, and finally engulphs its prey in its noisome maw. "Is that the Whale's Mouth of which you told me, Jerry?" asked Alfred. "That's it," answered Jerry, shortly. He took up one of the torches lying on the stern-sheets and threw the torch towards the cave into the sea. "It doesn't appear very dreadful now--does it?" "Watch that torch. No sea looks very terrifying in a calm," said Jerry, sharply. He had not yet quite recovered from the passage of arms with Phelan. The boatman had annoyed him by extravagantly over-estimating the dangers and powers of the chasm, and Paulton now ruffled him by seeming to make nothing of them.