"I expect the haunting is thousands of years older than the Spaniards," she said. "Urchin, are you afraid of ghosts?" "Not a bit," said the Urchin stoutly. "They would be splendid to throw stones at. It wouldn't hurt them." "Come on then, let's go," said the girl. "There's lots of daylight." "None of the people here will go into it, you know," said the Urchin. "I know," said Fiona. "All the more reason for going on our own. There might really be something there, if no one ever goes to take it away." So the boat was launched, and the adventure also. Fiona pulled stroke; the Urchin was a clumsy and unpunctual bow, and the girl had to steer from the stroke oar, which needs more doing than you may think if you haven't tried it. But they made the end of Scargill in time, and then Fiona took both the oars and coasted, while the Urchin got out a couple of bamboo poles, garnished with white flies, and let the casts trail, occasionally getting one of the beautiful little scarlet lythe, that came at the fly with the spring and dash of a sea trout. For even adventurers need supper. And so they came, past many a smaller cave mouth in the black side of the island, to the huge bluff that fronts the full Atlantic, and the great west cave. Atlantic was half asleep to-day, and muttered drowsily to the quiet rocks outside. But the great cave was seldom quiet. In the winter, when Atlantic turned himself restlessly and spoke aloud, the sound of his speaking came back from its depths like the roar of a heavy gun; and even in the stillness the lisp of the swell in it echoed as from the roots of the island in a low intermittent boom. Outside, on the calm water, floated the whiskered head of a seal, watching the boat with gentle, fearless eyes,--"the officer on guard," Fiona whispered;--and from the black cliff's face, like a hanging fringe over the mouth of the cave, the water splashed down, trickle by trickle, in quick, heavy drops. The children rowed in through the little shower, and Fiona paddled gently up the cave. Its huge limestone walls stood up stark on either hand, rising into the darkness above, and sinking below into the green water, as far as eye could follow them. Near the water-line grew a little seaweed, and some white whelks clung; but as they went down the waterway these vanished, and gray cliff and green water alike began to turn black. Looking back, Fiona could see a bright patch, a patch of sky and sky-reflecting sea, framed in the narrow slit of the cave's mouth. The waterway was narrowing now; she shipped her oars and stood up, using one as a paddle, and instructing the Urchin how to fend off the boat's stern with his hands. In front, on a ledge in the cave's roof, it was just possible to make out a row of blue dots in the growing darkness; as the boat drew nearer, the blue dots fluttered, detached themselves from the cliff, and a swarm of pigeons came whirring over the boat and