'She's out of sight,' said Harry in a dejected tone, going to the window. 'Is she?' said Gerald, looking out too; 'why, so she is.' 'If you fellows want to see her,' said Allan, 'why don't you go to the top of the hill? You'll get a first-class view from there.' Without a word the boys darted from the room and out at the front door, Harry with his bootlaces untied and flapping about his ankles, and Gerald without a hat. In scrambling over the wall Harry became caught, and fell sprawling on the ground, but picked himself up and ran on as if nothing had happened. 'Come, you two,' said Allan, 'now that we've got them safely out of the way we've got to do something.' Marjorie ran for her bridle and put it on Cheeky, who was cropping grass by the stream. 'Go on,' shouted Allan; 'don't wait for us, we'll soon catch you up. Let's go and catch Dewdrop and Daisy, Reggie; bicycles are no good for the moors.' In a short time Marjorie was overtaken by the two boys, perched upon bridleless, bare-backed ponies. The wind whistled past as they galloped over the level ground, and they were almost too breathless to speak as they urged their ponies up the slopes of the hill. 'Oh, gee up, Daisy; gee-up!' cried Allan, 'we have no time to lose to-day!' 'Glad we got away all right,' he panted as they stood breathing their ponies on the summit; 'it would never do to have these two dragging about and asking questions. We've just got to get Neil out of there before anything more happens,' he continued. 'The boat is waiting about, watching for an opportunity to leave as soon as the _Heroic_ goes; and we must make Neil promise to leave with her.' The sturdy little ponies descended the slopes with the sure-footedness of cats; then sprang pluckily over the moss-hags which covered the greater part of the peninsula. Suddenly, without warning, they became entangled in a treacherous piece of bog, from which they did not struggle into safety until Marjorie's pony had lost a shoe. 'Look out,' cried Allan, as they were about to spring forward once more; 'it's here that there are those holes that go down into the caves, and you don't see them until you've nearly fallen into them.' Curbing their impatience, they dismounted and walked, leading the ponies by the bridle. 'There,' said Marjorie as they neared the cliff, 'the tide's rising, and they're shaking out the sails on the smugglers' vessel.' 'Shall we all go down?' asked Reggie. 'No,' said Allan, 'the fewer the better. You stay here with the ponies, and I'll go down with Marjorie.' 'Me?' said Marjorie, surprised. 'Yes, you. You've got to speak to him and get him to leave. Come along.' They lowered themselves over the edge of the cliff, and clambered to the beach. Two faces scowled at them over the bulwarks of the boat, and the captain waiting on the shore, a man of foreign appearance, with a shaggy black beard and a sou'-wester, glanced disapprovingly at Marjorie.