down the cave toward the sunlight;--"Your ghosts, Urchin," said the girl. Henceforward the cave was void of life, unless some strange, eyeless fish lurked in its inky depths. Darker and darker grew the waterway, and the last gleam of light vanished. Fiona was feeling her way now, aided by the phosphorescent drip from her oar blade; the Urchin, with unusual sense, splashed his hands in the water to increase the pale glow, which just revealed the line of the cliff. Neither dare speak now; possibly, had Fiona not had some idea of what was coming, she would have turned. But already there was a faint gleam ahead, faint as a glow worm, but still a gleam; and as the boat slid forward, and the low boom in the depths of the cave grew closer, the cave walls very slowly began to grow gray again out of the blackness. A few minutes more, and the walls were an outline, and before them, a fringe of white on round wet stones, the end of the waterway. And as the boat grounded, Fiona pointed up, and the Urchin, looking, saw a little round hole; a natural shaft ran down into the cave from the surface of the island, giving light enough for their eyes, now accustomed to the darkness, to distinguish outlines. They drew their boat up on the stones far enough for the swell not to dislodge it; then the same impulse seized them both and they burst out laughing, not aloud, for something in the place made it impossible to laugh or talk aloud, but in a kind of mirthless whisper. "We've come without any lights," said Fiona in an undertone. "We have," said the Urchin. "But probably the stuff is only a few yards above high-water mark; they wouldn't go far in." "They might have," said Fiona; "they'd have had torches or something." "Let's go as far as we can, anyway, as we are here," said the Urchin. So they started scrambling over the stones in the gray half-light. Presently there rose before them a great mass of rock and earth, half blocking the cave; it looked like some old landslip. "It's easy at this end, Fiona," said the boy; and up they went, to find that the rock barrier blocked most of what little light remained. Beyond was darkness. "We must go back and get light," said Fiona. "I can't even see the stones below." A pause; then, "Stop swinging your feet, Urchin; I want to listen." "I'm not," said the Urchin. Another pause, and then the Urchin spoke again, in a kind of stage whisper, "I'm frightened." The words seemed squeezed out of him. "We may as well go back, anyhow," said Fiona, in a strained voice. "Down you go, Urchin." The Urchin did go down at a considerable pace, and ran for the boat. Fiona managed to walk, by repeating to herself all the time under her breath, "You mustn't run, you mustn't run." But once in the boat she did not rebuke the Urchin for standing up and taking the other oar; and the pair paddled out, with many bumpings and scrapings, in a more speedy and less scientific manner than that in which they had entered.