23

another secret passage

after philip had left, lucy-ann and dinah tried to settle down to somesewing. but lucy-ann’s hands trembled so much that she kept pricking herfinger.

‘i’d better go and tell uncle jocelyn that aunt polly has gone to bed,feeling ill,’ said dinah. ‘come with me, lucy-ann.’

the two girls went off to the study and knocked at the door. they wentin, and dinah told her uncle about her aunt. he nodded, hardly seeming tohear.

‘uncle jocelyn,’ said dinah, ‘have you any more maps of the isle ofgloom? or any books about it?’

‘no,’ said her uncle. ‘but wait – there’s a book about this house, craggy?tops, i think. you know that it was a great place for illegal goings-on andsecret doings two or three hundred years ago? i believe there was a secretpassage to it from the beach.’

‘yes, there is,’ said dinah. ‘we know it.’

her uncle became quite excited. he made her tell him all about it. ‘dearme,’ he said, ‘i thought it had fallen in long ago. but these secret passageshewn out of the rock last for years. still, i should think the one that goesunder the sea to the isle of gloom has been flooded long since.’

the two girls stared at the old man in amazement. dinah found hertongue at last.

‘uncle jocelyn, do you mean to say there was another secret passagehere – under the sea to the island? why, it’s ever so far away!’

‘well, there was supposed to be,’ said her uncle. ‘there’s somethingabout it in that book. now – where is it?’

the girls waited in the greatest impatience whilst he found the book. heput his hand on it at last and dinah almost snatched if from him.

‘thank you, uncle,’ she said, and before he could say she must not takeit out of the room, she and lucy-ann rushed out of the door and sped to thesitting-room as fast as they could. another passage . . . this time to theisland itself! what a thrill! surely uncle jocelyn must be mistaken.

‘it’s quite likely it’s true, though,’ said dinah excitedly. ‘i know thiswhole coast is honeycombed with caves and passages – it’s noted for that.

some districts are, you know, lucy-ann. i expect the passage joins up withthe mine-workings that extend right under the sea-bed. we know there aremiles of them.’

the girls opened the funny old book. they could not read the printing,partly because it was so faded and partly because the letters were shapeddifferently from the ones they knew. they turned over page after page,looking for maps or pictures.

the book was apparently a history of craggy-tops, which was hundredsof years old. in those days it must have been almost a castle, built securelyon the cliff rock, protected by the sea in front, and the cliff behind. now, ofcourse, it was half ruined, and the family lived only in the few rooms thatwere still habitable.

‘look,’ said dinah, pointing to a queer old map, ‘that’s what craggy?tops was like in the old days. what a fine place! look at the towers – andwhat a grand front it had!’

they turned over the pages. they came to one that had a kind of diagramon it. the girls studied it closely. then lucy-ann gave a shout. ‘i knowwhat this is – it’s the secret passage from the cellar to the beach. isn’t it?’

it was. there was no doubt about that. the girls felt excited. perhaps thebook would show the other passage too.

there were two or three more diagram-like maps, some of them so fadedthat it was impossible to see what they were meant to represent. dinah gavea sigh.

‘i wish i could read this old printing. if i could, i might be able to findout whether any of these maps are meant to show the other secret passage –the one to the island. it would be so exciting to discover that. what a thrillif we did! what will the boys say when we tell them there’s actually a wayto the island under the sea itself?’

that made lucy-ann think of jack, and her face clouded over. wherewas jack? had philip got bill smugs to go out in his boat and rescue him?

were they even now bringing jack safely back again?

as she thought about this, she heard philip’s voice in the passage outsidethe sitting-room. she jumped up in delight. had philip and bill broughtback jack already? how marvellously quick they had been! she ran to thedoor joyfully.

but outside there were only bill and philip – no jack. lucy-ann calledout to them.

‘where’s jack? haven’t you rescued him? where is he?’

‘bill’s boat has been smashed up by someone,’ said philip, going into theroom. ‘so we came to get joe’s. and that’s gone too. i suppose joe is doingsome of his usual night fishing. so we’re stumped – don’t know what todo.’

the girls stared at the two in dismay. no boat – no way of rescuing poorjack? lucy-ann’s eyes filled with tears as she thought of jack lost in thosedark endless caves, with those fierce men ready to catch him and imprisonhim. she felt glad he had kiki with him.

‘oh, philip,’ said dinah, suddenly remembering, ‘do you know whatuncle jocelyn told us tonight? he said there used to be a way under the seato the copper mines – to the island! he knew about the other secret passage,but he didn’t think it was still usable. he was surprised. oh, philip, do yousuppose the secret passage to the island is still there? do you think it hasbeen flooded by the sea – or fallen in? oh, how i wish we could find it!’

bill looked suddenly interested. he picked up the book dinah held. ‘thisis a book about the old house?’ he asked. dinah nodded.

‘yes – our own secret passage is in it, the one we found ourselves – and iexpect the other is too, only we can’t understand the old maps and theprinting.’

‘well, i can,’ said bill, and became lost in the book, turning over thepages slowly, skipping a few here and there, looking for details of the wayto the isle of gloom.

he suddenly began to look excited, and turned over one or two pagesvery quickly. he looked hard at first one queer map and then another. thenhe asked a peculiar question.

‘how deep is your well here?’

‘the well?’ said philip, in amazement. ‘ooooh – awfully deep – deep asthe shaft-hole in the island, i should think. it goes down below sea level,anyway, but there’s not a trace of salt in it, of course.’

‘look here,’ said bill, and spelt out a few words in the book to makethem clear to the children, and then he turned to a map. it showed a deepshaft going down into the earth. ‘see?’ said bill. ‘the beginning of thepassage to the island is down at the bottom of your well. it’s quite obviousthat that would be the place, anyway, if i’d thought about it – you see, to gounder the sea-bed to the mines means that the entrance must be below sealevel – and that’s the only spot here below sea level – the well, of course!’

‘gosh!’ said all three children at once. the well! they hadn’t thought ofthat. how extraordinary!

‘but – there’s water at the bottom of the well,’ said philip. ‘you can’t gothrough the water, surely.’

‘no – look,’ said bill smugs, and he pointed to the map. ‘the entrance tothe passage is above the water-line of the well. see? these must be steps, ishould think, cut in an opening of the shaft, leading upwards a little way,and then through a passage in the rock itself – a natural crack, i imagine,such as this coast is full of – which someone discovered, followed up, andby means of pickaxes or blasting, made into a usable passage.’

‘i see,’ said philip excitedly. ‘i suppose when they sank the shaft for thewell, someone discovered the hole deep down, explored it, found it was asort of natural passage, and, as you say, followed it up, and made use of it.

bill – could we get down there and find out?’

‘not now, in the middle of the night,’ said bill at once. ‘you’ve all hadenough adventure for this one day – we must go to bed.’

‘but – but what about jack?’ asked lucy-ann, her green eyes wide withanxiety.

‘we can’t do anything about him tonight,’ said bill, firmly but kindly.

‘anyway, if he’s caught, he’s caught, and if he’s not, we may be able to dosomething about him tomorrow. but we are not going to go down wells inbuckets in the dead of night, so that’s that. philip, i’ll sleep with you in thetower-room tonight.’

philip was glad. he did not want to sleep alone that night. the girls weresent off to bed, in spite of their protests that they were not tired, and philipand bill climbed the spiral stairway to the little tower-room. philip showedbill the window from which they could see the island at times.

then he sat down on the bed to take off his shoes. but he was so tiredthat even the effort of undoing the laces was too much for him. he rolledover on the bed, shut his eyes, and fell fast asleep, fully dressed as he was.

bill looked at him and smiled. he drew a cover over him, and sat at thewindow to think.

tomorrow would show whether or not there was still a way from craggy?tops to the island. bill felt certain there would not be. true, the otherpassage was still usable, but that was very short compared with the other –and this second one had had the sea pounding on top of it for many, manyyears. a crack in it – a trickle of water down – and the passage would beflooded in a very few weeks. then it would be impassable.

bill went to bed at last, stretched himself out beside the sleeping boy, andfell asleep himself. he was awakened by philip, who was shaking him.

‘bill! it’s morning! let’s have breakfast and try and find that wellpassage. hurry!’

they were soon downstairs, to find the girls there, already cooking baconand eggs for breakfast. ‘where’s joe?’ asked philip, in surprise.

‘hasn’t come back from fishing yet,’ said dinah, getting a fried eggdeftly out of the pan. ‘here you are, bill. i’ll do an egg for you now, philip.

it’s a good thing joe isn’t back, isn’t it? – or he’d wonder what on earth billwas doing here. he would think it all mighty suspicious.’

‘joe may be back at any minute,’ said lucy-ann. ‘so let’s hurry beforehe comes. i’d just hate him to stand glowering at the head of the well whilstwe explore it all that way below.’

they finished their breakfast quickly. dinah had already taken some toher aunt in her bedroom, and to her uncle in his study. she said aunt pollywas feeling a bit better and would be down later. she didn’t think unclejocelyn had gone to bed at all.

‘i really believe he works all night long,’ said dinah. ‘now – have we allfinished? i’ll leave the washing-up till i get back.’

they all went out into the little yard that lay behind the house, backingon to the sheer rise of the cliff. bill leaned over the well. it certainly wasvery, very deep.

‘do we go down in the bucket?’ asked philip.

‘we could if there was a really big one,’ said dinah. ‘but we can’tpossibly go down in this. not even lucy-ann could get into it.’

‘you know,’ said bill, taking his big torch from his pocket. ‘you know, ifthis well-shaft is really the only way down to the entrance of the islandpassage, there should be a ladder. i can’t imagine people going up and downin buckets.’

‘well – there isn’t a ladder,’ said philip. ‘i should have seen it if therewas.’

bill flashed his torch down the well, examining the sides carefully.

‘look,’ he said to philip, ‘it is true there is no ladder – but do you see thoseiron staples jutting out from the wall down there? well, those are whatwould be used to help anyone wanting to descend this well-hole. theywould use them as steps, holding on to the ones above with their hands, andgoing down bit by bit – feeling with their feet for the next one.’

‘yes!’ said philip, in excitement. ‘you’re right! that’s the way thatpeople went down in the olden days. i bet when there was fighting roundabout here, many refugees used this old well as a hiding-place, even if theydidn’t know of the passage entrance down below. come on, bill – let’s godown. i’m simply longing to get going.’

‘well, it’s time we did,’ said bill. ‘i’ll go first. keep a watch out for joe,dinah.’