‘Bit of a coward, aren’t I?’ he said. ‘Leaving you out here all alone.’
‘I enjoyed it,’ said Dick truthfully. ‘And I’m sure Pongo did!’
‘You don’t know what dangerous fellows Lou and Dan are,’ said Nobby, looking down the hillside to make sure the men were really gone. ‘I tell you they’d stick at nothing. They’d burn your caravans, hurl them down the hill, poison your dog, and do what harm they could to you, too. You don’t know them like I do!’
‘Well, as a matter of fact, we’ve had some pretty exciting adventures with men just as tough as Dan and Lou,’ said Dick. ‘We always seem to be falling into the middle of some adventure or other. Now, last hols we went to a place called Smuggler’s Top and, my word, the adventures we had there! You wouldn’t believe them!’
‘You tell me and Pongo,’ said Nobby, sitting down beside Dick. ‘We’ve plenty of time before the others come back.’
So Dick began to tell the tale of all the other thrilling adventures that the five of them had had, and the time flew. Both boys were surprised when they heard Timmy barking down the track, and knew that the others were back.
George came tearing up with Timmy at her heels. ‘Are you all right? Did anything happen while we were away? Do you know, we saw Lou and Tiger Dan getting on the bus when we got off it! They were carrying bags as if they meant to go away and stay somewhere.’
Nobby brightened up at once. ‘Did you really? Good! They came up here, you know, and Pongo chased them down the hill. They must have gone back to the camp, collected their bags, and gone to catch the bus. Hurrah!’
‘We’ve got fine torches,’ said Julian, and showed Dick his. ‘Powerful ones. Here’s one for you, Dick and one for you, Nobby.’
‘Oooh thanks,’ said Nobby. Then he went red. ‘I haven’t got enough money to pay you for such a grand torch,’ he said awkwardly.
‘It’s a present for you,’ said Anne at once, ‘a present for a friend of ours, Nobby!’
‘Coo! Thanks awfully,’ said Nobby, looking quite overcome. ‘I’ve never had a present before. You’re decent kids, you are.’
Pongo held out his hand to Anne and made a chattering noise as if to say: ‘What about one for me, too?’
‘Oh we didn’t bring one for Pongo!’ said Anne. ‘Why ever didn’t we?’
‘Good thing you didn’t,’ said Nobby. ‘He would have put it on and off all day long and wasted the battery in no time!’
‘I’ll give him my old torch,’ said George. ‘It’s broken, but he won’t mind that!’
Pongo was delighted with it. He kept pressing down the knob that should make the light flash and when there was no light he looked all about on the ground as if the light must have dropped out! The children roared at him. He liked them to laugh at him. He did a little dance all round them to show how pleased he was.
‘Look here wouldn’t it be a jolly good time to explore underground now that we know Lou and Dan are safely out of the way?’ asked Julian suddenly. ‘If they’ve got bags with them, surely that means they’re going to spend the night somewhere and won’t be back till tomorrow at least. We’d be quite safe to go down and explore.’
‘Yes, we could,’ said George eagerly, ‘I’m longing to get down there and Make Discoveries!’
‘Well, let’s have something to eat first,’ said Dick. ‘It’s long past our dinner-time. It must be about half-past one. Yes, it is!’
‘George and I will get you a meal,’ said Anne. ‘We called at the farm on our way up and got a lovely lot of food. Come on, George.’
George got up unwillingly. Timmy followed her, sniffing expectantly. Soon the two girls were busy getting a fine meal ready, and they all sat on the rocky ledge to eat it.
‘Mrs Mackie gave us this enormous bar of chocolate for a present today,’ said Anne, showing a great slab to Dick and Nobby. ‘Isn’t it lovely? No, Pongo, it’s not for you. Eat your sandwiches properly, and don’t grab.’
‘I vote we take some food down into the hill with us,’ said Julian. ‘We may be quite a long time down there, and we shan’t want to come back at tea-time.’
‘Oooh a picnic inside the hill!’ said Anne. That would be thrilling. I’ll soon pack up some food in the kitbag. I won’t bother to make sandwiches. We’ll take a new loaf, butter, ham and a cake, and cut what we want. What about something to drink?’
‘Oh, we can last out till we get back,’ said Julian. ‘Just take something to eat to keep us going till we have finished exploring.’
George and Nobby cleared up and rinsed the plates. Anne wrapped up some food in greased paper, and packed it carefully into the kitbag for Julian to carry. She popped the big bar of chocolate into the bag, too. It would be nice to eat at odd moments.
At last they were all ready. Jimmy wagged his tail. He knew they were going somewhere.
The five of them pushed the caravan back a few feet to expose the hole. They had all tugged the van back into place the night before, in case Lou and Dan came to go down the hole again. No one could get down it if the caravan was over it.
The boards had been laid roughly across the hole and the boys took them off, tossing them to one side. As soon as Pongo saw the hole he drew back, frightened.
‘He’s remembered the darkness down there,’ said George. ‘He doesn’t like it. Come on, Pongo. You’ll be all right. We’ve all got torches!’
But nothing would persuade Pongo to go down that hole again. He cried like a baby when Nobby tried to make him.
‘It’s no good,’ said Julian. ‘You’ll have to stop up here with him.’
‘What and miss all the excitement!’ cried Nobby indignantly. ‘I jolly well won’t. We can tie old Pongo up to a wheel of the van so that he won’t wander off. Lou and Dan are away somewhere, and no one else is likely to tackle a big chimp like Pongo. We’ll tie him up.’
So Pongo was tied firmly to one of the caravan wheels. ‘You stay there like a good chimp till we come back,’ said Nobby, putting a pail of water beside him in case he should want a drink. ‘We’ll be back soon!’
Pongo was sad to see them go but nothing would have made him go down that hole again! So he sat watching the children disappear one by one. Timmy jumped down, too, and they were all gone. Gone on another adventure. What would happen now?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
INSIDE THE HILL
The children had all put on extra jerseys, by Julian’s orders, for he knew it would be cold inside the dark hill. Nobby had been lent an old one of Dick’s. They were glad of them as soon as they were walking down the dark passage that led to the first cave, for the air was very chilly.
They came to the small cave and Julian flashed his torch to show them where the footholds went up the wall to a hole in the roof.
‘It’s exciting,’ said George, thrilled. ‘I like this sort of thing. Where does that hole in the roof lead to, I wonder? I’ll go first, Ju.’
‘No, you won’t,’ said Julian firmly. ‘I go first. You don’t know what might be at the top!’
Up he went, his torch held in his mouth, for he needed both hands to climb. The footholds were strong nails driven into the rock of the cave-wall, and were fairly easy to climb.
He got to the hole in the roof and popped his head through. He gave a cry of astonishment.
‘I say! There’s a most ENORMOUS cavern here bigger than six dance-halls and the walls are all glittering with something phosphorescence, I should think.’
He scrambled out of the hole and stood on the floor of the immense cave. Its walls twinkled in their queer light, and Julian shut off his torch. There was almost enough phosphorescent light in the cavern to see by!
One by one the others came up and stared in wonder. ‘It’s like Aladdin’s cave!’ said Anne. ‘Isn’t that a queer light shining from the walls and from the roof, too, Julian?’
Dick and George had rather a difficulty in getting Timmy up to the cavern, but they managed it at last. Timmy put his tail down at once when he saw the curious light gleaming everywhere. But it went up again when George patted him.