They had followed the track for perhaps half a mile when the ivy-clad ruins of the chapel above St. Cuby’s Well came into view. Instantly recollections, suspicions, deductions linked themselves in Dick’s mind. Penwarden had mentioned a hiding-place which the smugglers were believed to have on the shore, but which was seldom used, and had never been discovered. The old mine, with its abandoned workings, would form an ideal temporary store for contraband goods. But how was access to it obtained from the sea? Not by the entrance to the seal cave, for this was unsuitable in itself for a storehouse, and the work of hoisting the tubs up the wall and over the ledge would be very laborious. Dick remembered the transverse gallery which he had passed on his way through the adit to the well; probably the hiding-place would be found at the shoreward end of that, though it was strange that the pertinacity of the revenue officers had never discovered it. Another surprising circumstance was the choice of the well as the channel for the conveyance of goods between the shore and the country. The horror and dread in which it was held by the villagers had seemed genuine; yet, if his reasoning was correct, the fear of ghosts had not been so potent as to prevent the smugglers from entering it. Possibly there was another shaft connecting the hiding-place with the upper ground; but remembering the strutted adit he had traversed, Dick felt sure that the goods were brought to the surface by way of the well. The explanation of this puzzling fact did not occur to him till later. As they approached the well the boys proceeded with great caution. "I believe they have got Penwarden down there," said Dick. "Somebody is guarding him; somebody may be watching in the chapel. If we are seen it will be awkward for us, and perhaps still more for old Joe." "Daze it all, we could run to the Towers and tell of all their wicked doings. But do ’ee think they bean’t afeard o’ the ghosteses?" "They don’t appear to be." "Dash my simple soul, I see their manin’, I do b’lieve. ’Afeard o’ their own bogeys,’ says Maister John. They do be the ghosteses their own selves. To think o’ their deceivin’ ways, tarrifyin’ poor simple folks like you and me wi’ their feignin’!" They spoke in whispers, peering ahead, listening for sounds. But there was nothing to alarm eyes or ears, and they came at length beneath the shade of the masonry, and stood on the brink of the well. Here there were clear traces of recent movements—traces which might have escaped them had they come unsuspectingly, but which were evident to their prepared perception. The herbage was slightly trodden; the topmost staple was not so thickly cased with rust as it had been at their last visit; and the mossy coating of the stonework at the edge was darkened at two places, about two feet apart, where the hands of men ascending would have rested for support. "We must go down and explore the adits," said Dick.