CHAPTER 16.
Prisoners!
THE four children were pushed, along by the men. They were afraid of falling, but the men guided them over the rough places. It seemed to them all as if they were going upwards, not on the level. How they hoped that Andy’s father would spot them, if only he had his field-glasses!
Andy was doing his best to try and memorize the way, as they went along. “Up all the timeto the left first and then fairly straightthen a steep bit up, where they had to help usthen to the left again, keeping inwards. I suppose we are behind big rocks now, so that no one can see us from the sea.”
Andy was doing something else too, that he hoped his captors were not noticing! He was dropping little pinches of salt here and there as he went! He had made a hole in his pocket, and he let out a bit of the salt every now and again.
He wanted to be able to find his way to the smugglers’ hiding-place, if ever he got free and had the chance to! He hoped that he might be able to follow the little trail of salt he was leaving!
“If only it doesn’t rain!” thought the boy. “If it rains, the salt will melt and there won’t be any sign of it. Well, I must hope for the best.”
After about ten minutes’ rough stumbling, the men told the children to halt. There was a pause. Andy strained his eyes, and then tried to pull off his bandage. But he got a hard clip on the ear at once.
He heard a grating noise that puzzled him. Then the children were pushed roughly forward again, and it seemed darker, through their bandages.
“Going into the island itselfa cave of some sort, or a passage,” thought Andy, as the men pushed the children along again. They went upwards again, and Andy cautiously put his hands out to the side of him. He felt rocky walls each side. Yes, they were in a passage inside the island!
At last they all came to a stop. “You’ll be safe here for a bit!” said the jeering voice of the bandy-legged man, and he stripped off the red handkerchiefs that bound their eyes.
They blinked. They were standing in a high-roofed place, looking at a big door. Andy felt something bright at the back of him and swung round. He gave a gasp.
They were in a cave, very high up, that opened on to the sunlit sea. It lay very far below, moving slowly. There was an absolutely sheer drop down from the cave to the seaa very frightening drop!
There was a bang, as the heavy wooden door behind them shut. The children heard bolts being shot into place. They were prisonersbut what a strange prison!
“It’s a big cave, with a door at the backand a terribly steep drop down outside,” said Jill, peeping out and drawing back very quickly. “GoodnessI shan’t look out again like that. It makes me feel awfully giddy. We couldn’t possibly get out that way.”
“Can we see Andy’s father’s boat?” asked Tom, almost dazzled by the brightness outside, after having his eyes bandaged for so long.
They all gazed out earnestly. But there was nothing to be seen at all except a dangerous, treacherous, rock-strewn shore, where waves battered themselves into foam and spray.
“It’s said that no one can get beyond a certain point in a boat, if they want to sail round the island,” said Andy. “I don’t believe anyone ever has sailed right round it. You can’t get near the other sideit’s too dangerous. We must be almost on the other side now, I should think. I doubt if my father could get round as far as this.”
“I bet those men knew that then,” said Tom gloomily. “They knew that we couldn’t possibly signal from here, because we wouldn’t see your father’s boat. Beasts!”
“I hope they’re not going to keep us here long,” said Andy. “I don’t fancy being shut up like this, without any food or rugs or anything.”
“This is as bad as last year’s adventure,” said Jill. “Wellalmost as bad!”
The four children sat down in the cave. Andy got up after a while and went to the door. He tried it. but, of course, it was fast shut.
“I knew it would be. But I thought I’d just try,” said Andy. “I do wonder how long they’ll keep us here-till my father’s gone home again, I suppose! And I do wonder too where they sank the poor old Andy. I hate to think of her at the bottom of the sea.”
“With fish swimming in the cabins, and crabs getting into the bunks,” said Jill. “Horrid!”
For about three hours nothing happened. The children gazed out to sea, hoping against hope to see a boat or a ship they could signal to. But not one came into sight. Only the gulls circled and glided nearby, calling to one another in their loud voices. The children watched them, for they had nothing else to do.
Then there came the sound of the door being unbolted. They all sat up at once. Who was it?
It was Bandy. He came in, carrying a big jug of water and a plate of bread and meat. Nothing else at all.
“You don’t deserve a thing!” he said in his rather hoarse voice. “Interfering, tiresome nuisances you are! Eat this, and be glad of it!”
“Bandy! How long are we to be kept here?” asked Andy. “And what have you done with my boat? Sunk her?”
“Why? Are you thinking of trying to sail away in her?” asked Bandy, with a nasty smile. “You can give up all hope of that! She’s sunk all right! “
Andy turned away, sick at heart. He had hoped against hope that his lovely boat wasn’t really sunk.
“Can’t you let us out now?” asked Tom. “I suppose you shut us up because Andy’s father came. Cowards!”
“Do you want a clip on the ear?” said Bandy, coming into the cave and glaring at Tom.
“Shut up, Tom, now,” said Andy. “It’s no good provoking him. It’s pretty boring here, Bandy. Can’t we have something to do? And the rock is very hard to sit on.”
“Serves you right. Children that come sticking their noses into what isn’t their business deserve all they get,” said Bandy, who seemed to enjoy being nasty. “Maybe you’ll be here for weeks! Ha hahow do you like the thought of that?”
“I think, Bandy, if you do a thing like that, you’ll be very sorry for yourself later on, when all this is known,” said Andy in a quiet voice. “You’ll be severely punished.”
“Bah!” said Bandy rudely, and went out and shut the door, bolting it noisily. “Bah!” they heard him say again outside.
The food made them feel a little better, though the bread was very stale and hard, and the meat tasted a bit musty. But they did not feel very cheerful as they gazed out through the opening at the sea and the sky, thinking that they might be there for weeks.
Jill and Mary looked so upset that Andy tried to cheer them up. “He was only being beastly,” he told them. “Just trying to scare us all. He’ll let us out as soon as my father’s boat has gone away. Don’t you worry, girls!”
They saw no sign of Andy’.” father that day. They did not knew how be and Andy’s uncle sailed up and down, and round about, looking for the missing boat and the children. They did not see them sailing to the Cliff of Birds and anchoring there to climb the cliff. Nor did they see them come back again and again to Smuggler’s Rock, hunting for a cove where they might see the Andy.
Towards five o’clock, when they were all feeling very hungry indeed, they heard the bolts of the door being pulled back. This time it was the dark man who came in. He spoke to them in his deep voice, and they heard again his slightly foreign accent and knew that he was not English.
“You can go now. The ship that has been hunting for you has given you up, and has gone. But I warn you that if it is sighted again, you will once more have to come here to this cave, where you will be imprisoned until the boat has once again gone.”
“We shall have to be set free of the island some time,” said Andy. “Why all this mystery and fuss? What are you doing that you want to hide?”
“Children shouldn’t ask dangerous questions!” said the man, and his eyes gleamed angrily. “When we have finished here, you shall go, but not till then. You will now be blindfolded once again and taken down to the rocks you know.”