It was not a real cave, Chryseis jerkily explained to Pavlo as they ran; only a dark hole in the earth under the bridge, and it was not mysterious at all and did not seem to lead anywhere, but the governess would never let them look properly into it. Over on the mainland there were some splendid real caves, that real robbers and deserters had hidden in; and in the old days people who were escaping from the Turks; but the Four had only been there once and then they were with grown-ups. "Lambro the shepherd told me," panted Iason, "that there is one here on the island over on the other side of the hills, near the beach of Vayonia. A great big dark cave with a small opening, and you go in and in and never find the end. He says there were old swords and guns hidden there and ... all sorts of things. I mean to look for it some day." "Will they let us?" asked Nikias, stooping to pull up a sock which threatened to cover his shoe entirely. "Let us!" said Iason contemptuously; "they never let us! But we will go!" The cave under the bridge was nothing but a small hole full of cobwebs and dry leaves. However, they all managed to wriggle in and wriggle out again, dirty, but triumphant, before Kyria Penelope, hot and protesting, came up to them. V Of course Pavlo's uncle had finished all he had to do in Poros long before this time, but it so happened that another summons had called him on to Nauplia, and it had been settled that while he was there, Pavlo should stay on at the Red House and that his uncle should spend one more day in Poros on his way back, and then that both should return together to Athens. There had been cries of delight over this arrangement, and Andromache had expressed a wish that the patient in Nauplia might have a nice proper illness. He need not die, of course, she added, but just be ill enough to want to keep the doctor from Athens near him for a long time. So it was strange that the very day after this, Pavlo should have been lying on his face under the pines in the small wood, crying his heart out. For alas and alack, it had daily been getting more and more difficult to live up to all that was expected of his name, and this particular morning it had been worse than impossible. He had been at the gate with the girls and the three dogs watching the "trata." For him, it was a new sight, and the Four were never tired of looking at the fishermen and the fisher boys with their bare brown limbs, wet and glistening in the sun, pulling all together at the ropes, and emptying all the squirming little silver fishes out of the long net.