'If any one wants help, just sing out,' cried Allan, descending by the rocky steps. 'Don't look down, and you'll be all right.' 'Take my hand, Gerald,' said Tricksy graciously to Gerald, who hesitated at a perilous-looking gap. Gerald flushed pink, and pretended not to have heard the offer of assistance; and the two strangers braced themselves to their unaccustomed feat. The way led round the chasm and downward, sometimes approaching the face of the cliff, where the inquisitive eyes and red bills of the puffins peered out of the crevices, and whole rows of auks and kittiwakes were thrown into violent agitation by the sight of the intruders; and sometimes leading back to the dark interior of the chasm. The place was full of echoes; the hollow boom of the breakers, the swirling of water round half-submerged rocks, the hoarse cries of the gulls and the shrill scream of the smaller sea-birds joining in an uproar which made the air tremble. Many a time, during the descent, it cost the new-comers an effort to avoid being overcome by dizziness. At last Allan reached the last ledge, and swung himself to the ground; Reggie and Marjorie followed; Tricksy came last, and the Grahams dropped down with an air of relief. 'Well done for you,' said Allan approvingly; 'it's your first climb of the kind, and you haven't shown an atom of funk.' Gerald's cheeks became a little redder, and Harry bore himself with greater self-consciousness. 'Only Hamish now,' said Allan, looking up at the cliff; 'how cautiously the old fellow is coming down; he has the steadiest head of the lot of us although he is so slow.' '"Sleepy Hamish,"' remarked Harry to Gerald in an aside, repeating a nickname which he had heard Allan use. Low as the words were spoken, Marjorie heard them, and turned upon the boy like a flash. 'Some people have more in them than they make a show of,' she said. 'Perhaps you don't understand that kind of thing, though.' Harry did not chance to have a reply ready, but he observed to Reggie afterwards that it was a pity Marjorie seemed to be a quick-tempered kind of a girl. 'Here we are,' said Allan, pausing beneath a great overhanging archway, and speaking loudly so as to be heard above the din; for the waves and the clamouring of the birds made a noise which was almost deafening. 'Can we go in?' asked Gerald. 'Of course we can. There's no danger except in a westerly gale. It's dark after you get in a little way.' The young people scrambled and slipped over the sea-weed at the mouth of the cave, and presently found themselves standing on a floor of light-coloured sand, strewn with shells and sea-drift. The sides of the cave were black and shiny with wet, and water dripped slowly from the roof. 'Is this where the smugglers used to come?' asked Gerald in an awed tone.