CHAPTER XLVI. AN EVENING WALK. "Yes, Madge, 'twas an awful time. I never felt anything like it in my life; and as for Alfred, he was stunned with terror. You see, that old mine shaft had followed the soft part of the cliff (there's not much use in looking for copper in solid sandstone), and so was like a huge telescope, pointed south at some angle or other--the angle, I think, at which you are now holding your chin." "Jerry, don't talk nonsense." "You'd be very sorry indeed if I didn't. Well, we hauled the dreadful thing we had found into the boat, and then began to think of getting back; but Phelan, the boatman, swore he would not go through that awful Red Cave with it on board. "We looked round us to see the best thing we could do. We found we were in what I may call an under-ground pool, from which there were three ways out--one leading into the cliff, one leading in the direction of the sea, and the one by which we had entered. Am I tiring you with my long-winded description?" "No, Jerry--go on; I came out to hear all," said Madge, pressing the arm on which her own rested. "We first tried the way towards the sea, and found, to Phelan's amazement and consternation, that it led right under, or, rather, through the Puffing Hole. No power on earth could induce Phelan to go that way. When we made this discovery, I now plainly saw the meaning of those mysterious measurements and instructions left by the unfortunate Fahey, and the means by which he had effected his extraordinary disappearance years ago. He had jumped down and swum inward to where we had found his dead body. In his 'Memorandum,' 'Rise 15.6 lowest' meant what I had expected--the rise of the lowest tide. 'At lowest minute of lowest forward with all might undaunted,' meant that one entering at the Whale's Mouth at the lowest minute of the lowest tide was to push forward with all vigour.... But, Madge darling, this must bore you to death?" "No, Jerry, I love to hear it. Just fancy having the hero of such an adventure telling it quietly to me on the Dulwich Road!" "Twenty years hence how sick you'll be of these same adventures! You will then have heard them told at least a thousand times to every fresh acquaintance I make--man, woman, or child. But you'll be very tired of me also, sweetheart, and you shall go to sleep in an easy-chair while I prate on." "Don't say such horrid things, or I shall cry. Please go on." "Ah, well, you may bully me now, but you won't then. Where did I leave off, darling?" He pressed her arm and she pressed his. "At the man going up under the Puffing Hole. The paper he left with your solicitor." "Our solicitor--say our solicitor." "Our solicitor. There! But how tiresome you are!"