AdvFour2 – The Adventurous Four Again – Blyton, Enid.

“Of course, Andy! Didn’t I tell you those two men disappeared down a hole in the floor of their cave? Well—that’s the hole, I bet! It’s got to lead somewhere, and it led down to this passage. Why didn’t we flash our torch upwards before?”

Both boys immediately felt better. So much better, in fact, that they both leapt up and were prepared to go on for miles again, if need be! Andy tried to see how to climb up. But there was no sign of steps or footholds of any kind.

“What’s that—twisted round something there?” whispered Tom suddenly. Andy shone his torch. He saw a rope caught round an iron staple driven into the rock. The rope was as dark as the rock, and neither of the boys had noticed it before. They had been looking for steps cut out, or for iron footholds.

“That’s it—that’s the way to get up and down!” whispered Andy. “We’ll go up right away! I don’t imagine there’s anybody in the cave above, or we should see a light of some sort. I’ll go first, Tom. Hold the torch for me.”

Tom took the torch. His hand was trembling with excitement and relief, so the light was rather shaky! Andy untwisted the rope and took hold of it. It was firm and strong. The fisherboy went up it like a monkey. He was used to ropes!

He found himself in the darkness. He had no idea where he was, once he had climbed up out of the hole. He looked down and saw Tom’s anxious face in the light of the torch.

“Throw up the torch!” he said. “Careful, now. That’s it. Now, I’ll shine it down for you. Catch hold of the rope. Come on!”

Tom climbed up the rope too, and Andy gave him a helping hand at the top. They stood up and looked round by the light of their torch.

“Yes—this is the cave I told you about—the one with the stores—where the underground river rushes nearby,” said Tom. “Good thing there’s no one here!”

Andy flashed his torch at the piles of boxes. “Those are food-stores,” he said. “See? There’s a box half-unpacked, look—full of tinned food to feed all the men who help in this unlawful work. My word, whoever planned this planned it very thoroughly! I suppose this food goes to feed all the crews of those motor-boats.”

“I’ll show you where the underground river flows,” said Tom, and dragged him behind the pile of boxes at one side of the cave. He showed him the hole beyond which the dark river rushed in its narrow tunnel. “That’s where I jumped in!” said Tom.

“Well—we won’t go that way,” said Andy. “It’s a bit too dangerous for my liking! We’ll go up, not down, Tom—up that twisting tunnel you found, that leads to the waterfall opening—and we’ll hope the torrent of water will be small enough to-day for us to creep out of the opening.”

“And then we’ll wait on the cliff and signal!” said Tom. “We’ll soon be rescued! Come on, Andy—into the tunnel we go!”

CHAPTER 21.

Andy Gets a Real Surprise.

ANDY and Tom left the store-cave behind, and went into the tunnel that led upwards. Tom was sure he knew the way. He remembered how he had first found his way into it—he had squeezed through the waterfall entrance, found himself in a big cave, gone into the next cave and found steps leading upwards

and from there had found his way down the twisting tunnel to the store-cave they had just left.

Yes, he knew the way all right. There was no chance of making a mistake, anyway, because as far as he remembered, there had only been the one tunnel to follow. It hadn’t kept forking into two, as the tunnel had in Smuggler’s Rock.

So flashing their torches in front of them, the boys began the long, tiring pull upwards. It seemed much longer to Tom than it had been before.

“Well, it’s because it goes up this time, not down!” said Andy, who was panting too. “It must be much easier going down it than up. My, what a climb!”

After a tune, Tom stopped in surprise. He shone his torch in front of him and stared, puzzled.

“Why, Andy, look—the passage splits into two here, after all—and I felt sure it didn’t. I felt sure there was only the one way to follow! Blow! I can’t have noticed it, when I came down!”

Andy examined the fork of the tunnel. “No—you wouldn’t notice it,” he said. “You’d come round that dark corner—see—and wouldn’t see there was another way leading off here, because of that jutting-out rock—and you’d just go on down without noticing it. Come on.”

“But, Andy, wait—I’m not at all sure which passage I came down in!” said Tom. “I might have come by either, and not noticed the other one. Oh, which one did I take?”

“Well, really—I should have thought you would have known that!” said Andy rather unfairly, for the two tunnels looked exactly alike in the darkness. Tom didn’t know. He stood and stared at them both, wondering which was the right one.

“Well, it doesn’t really matter,” said Andy at last. “We’ll take the right-hand one and hope for the best. If it doesn’t lead out on the cliff, we can easily go back and take the other one.”

“Yes, we could,” said Tom, relieved. “Come on, then, let’s take this one. It may be the right one. I have a feeling it is.”

But his feeling was wrong. It was most decidedly the wrong one! It twisted and turned much more than the right one had, and Tom soon was quite certain they were wrong.

“Better go back,” he said. “I’m sure this isn’t right.”

“Well, I wonder where it leads to then,” said Andy, puzzled. “It’s going upwards. Do you think it leads to the top of the Cliff—or goes to the other side of the shallow bay where we once anchored the Andy? It must come to an end soon, I should think. We might as well just see what happens!”

So they went on, and were soon rewarded by seeing what they thought must be daylight shining far ahead. And sure enough it was!

The passage suddenly came out from a deep cleft in the high cliff, and there, below them, was the sea, crashing over the rocks that studded that coast for miles on end.

They sniffed the fresh air in delight. After the mustiness of the tunnel, it was delicious. It was lovely, too, to feel the clean, cool wind on their faces.

They sat down on the ledge, scaring away half a dozen indignant nesting-birds. The disturbed eggs rolled round and round in a circle, but fortunately did not drop off the ledge.

“Now if we just had something to eat,” said Tom. He put his hand into his pocket, and to his great delight found a piece of ham and a half-piece of cake. The boys shared his find together hungrily, wishing there was more.

“We are higher up than we were before, when we were on the waterfall ledge,” said Andy. “I wonder where we are exactly? We’re not right at the top of the Cliff. I think we’ve gone beyond the Cliff of Birds, and are now on a ledge the other side. Let’s lean over the ledge and see if the cove we anchored in is down below us, or not. I don’t think it is.”

“Well, you look down,” said Tom. “It’s a bit too high up even for me! I shall feel giddy if I lean over the ledge at this height.”

“Hold my legs and I’ll go to the edge and put my head over,” said Andy. He lay down flat on his tummy and worked himself to the edge of the sharp ledge. Tom laid hold of his ankles and held them firmly.

Andy looked down. Miles below, as it seemed, the sea moved silently and slowly towards the cliff. The boys were too high up to hear any sound of the sea at all. It was queer to look down and see so far below.

Andy’s eyes swept the coast-line just there. It was as he had thought—they were no longer above the cove where they had once anchored the Andy. They must be farther round the coast.

The boy’s eyes examined the shore below closely—and then he saw something that made him stare so hard that his eyes blurred and he couldn’t see.

“Hold me fast, Tom, hold me,” he cried. “I’m going to wriggle a bit farther forward—I must see what’s exactly below us, miles down. Hold me tight!”

Tom tightened his grip of Andy’s sturdy ankles, as the boy hung himself a bit farther over the ledge, the better to see what was below. He stared. He stared in silence for so long that Tom got impatient.