by G. A. Henty
CHAPTER XIV
THE CASTLE OF THE DEMONS
"To-morrow, senor," Dias said, "you will see the spot I was telling youabout, where, as the traditions say, the spirits of our ancestorsinhabit the ruins of a building so old, that it was ancient when theIncas first came here. They are still there, and men who have been rashenough to approach the spot have been found torn to pieces as if bywild beasts; but none go near now."
"Did the Spaniards never go there?"
"I know not, sir; but 'tis likely they never even heard of it. Thecountry is all dry and barren, and there were no mines to tempt them.The Indians never speak of it; those who were alive when the Spaniardscame had some reasons for not doing so; and even now you could go tothe nearest village, which lies more than twenty miles away, and askthe people about it, but they would only say that they had never heardof it, that no such place existed, for they believe that even to speakof it would bring dire disaster. We Indians are Christians; theSpaniards made us so. We make the sign of the cross, and we bow beforetheir images and pictures, and once a year we go to their churches; butamong the tribes east of the mountains that is all. We believe in thetraditions of our fathers and in the demons of the forest; and thoughon this side of the hills, where the Spaniards held a tight grip uponus, the people have well-nigh forgotten their old faith, they stillbelieve in many of the tales they have learned from their fathers, andthis of the Castle of the Demons, as it is called, is as strong as everin these parts."
"Have you ever seen the castle, Dias?"
"I have seen it, senor. There is only one point from which it isvisible. We shall go there to-morrow, it is ten miles from here. Thecastle lies in a rift of the rock. I should say that in ancient timesthis opened to the sea, but the building closed the entrance. Whateverit may have been, it does not rise above the summit of the cliff, whichgoes down as straight as a wall for miles on the sea-face. The rift onthe land side of the castle seems to have a width of about fifty feet,and I could see openings which were, I suppose, windows. The rocks oneach side are higher than the castle itself, so that anyone comingalong would not see it until he looked down upon it."
"But of course it is visible from the sea, Dias?"
"It would have been visible in the old days without a doubt, senor, butit cannot be seen now. The stones are the colour of the rocks besidethem. They are stained and broken, and unless a boat went along withina very short distance none would dream that there was a break in thecliff there. I heard that from a fisherman whose boat was driven in bya gale and well-nigh lost. He said that he could see that the stones,which are very large--much larger than any of those in the remains ofthe buildings of the Incas--were not in regular lines."
"It is very strange that anyone should have taken the trouble to builda place in such a singular position. Is there not any legend as to itsconstruction?"
"There is a tradition, senor, that it was built as a prison, by theking of those times, a thousand years before the Spaniards came, andeven before the people whom the Incas conquered came into the land, andthat it was a place of imprisonment, some say of a wife, others of ason, who had rebelled against him. Some say that it was built by thedemons, but as it happened long before our people came here, none canknow."
"Well, Dias, it seems to me that this old place is very likely to havebeen used as a hiding-place for treasure. As to these tales aboutdemons, of course they are ridiculous. I took your advice when we werebeing opposed by fierce Indians, but when it is a question of demons, Ican trust to my revolvers and rifles against a legion of them."
"Well, senor, you are the master. I have led you here as I promised.There may be treasure here or there may not. If you will go, you must;but I pray you not to command me to go with you. I would have followedyou to the death through the swamps and forests on the other side, butI dare not risk being torn to death by demons and being left withoutburial."
"I do not press you to go, Dias. I respect your convictions, though Ido not share in them. I have had a year of travel with you, and we havehad many adventures together. This will be my last before I returnhome. Here at least there seems to me a chance of finding treasure, aninfinitely better chance than any we have had, except in the goldvalley. Here is a mysterious castle, of whose very existence theSpaniards seem never to have heard. It is just the place where treasuremight be hidden. If it has guardians, they must be human, and alsothere can be but few. The urgent necessity for secrecy was so great,that it must, like all the other secrets, have been confided to a fewonly. Maybe but one or two old men are there, of whom certainly I neednot be afraid. I have told you why I came here, and why I feel soanxious to find a valuable mine, or part of the lost treasures of theIncas. So far I have failed altogether, and I should be a fool as wellas a coward were I not ready to run some slight risk in searching thismysterious castle."
"So be it, senor. I say not that you may not succeed. It may be thatthe demons have no power over white men. If you go and return safely Iwill go with you, and, should you find treasure, aid you to carry itaway. I will lead you to within two miles of it, and will wait threedays for your return. If you come not then, I will return to my placeand mourn for you."
"Very well, Dias, you may count upon my return long before the threedays are up. Now, in the first place, take me to the point from which Ican have a view of the castle."
"We have had a long journey to-day, senor, and it is two hours' journeyfrom here. We had better rest and go in the morning."
Harry nodded.
"We will be off early. You say it is ten miles from the spot where weshall see it. If we start at daybreak I can be there before noon, whichwill give me plenty of time for a first look round the place. We havegot some torches left. I shall want them, for possibly there may besome chambers underground into which we shall have to penetrate. We maytake it as certain that, whether the old people hid a great treasurefrom the Incas, or the Incas hid one from the Spaniards, they did notleave it about in rooms, but stowed it away in vaults like those we sawat Pachacamac, and these will certainly want a lot of looking for."
"I will help you look, senor, and will work there as long as you likein the search, if you return and tell me that you have seen and heardnothing of the demons that are said to be there. I am not afraid ofdanger when I know that it is men that we have to do with. But I dreadbeing strangled and torn, as the legends say that all who have venturedhere have been."
"But according to your own account, Dias," Bertie laughed, "that waslong, long ago, and the demons may have got tired of guarding a placethat no one came near, and have gone elsewhere in search of victims."
Dias shook his head gravely. In spite of his life as a muleteer, andhis acquaintance with Englishmen, he was as superstitious as the restof his countrymen. The nominal Christianity enforced by the Spaniardsupon the natives was but skin-deep, and thus they clung with undyingfidelity to the superstitions and traditions that had been handed downfrom generation to generation, and had been preserved with a tenacitythat even the tortures of the Spaniards had failed to shake. Thefailure to obtain the gold which they confidently expected to find inthe valley had still further strengthened his belief that it wasdestined that these treasures should never be discovered; and althoughwhen there he had listened gravely to Harry's explanations of themanner in which the lake had been formed, his own conviction that allthis was the work of demons had been unshaken. If, then, a spot, whicheven the tradition handed down to him had in no way connected with theguardianship of demons, was so firmly watched, how much more must thisbe so at a spot which all legends agreed was inhabited by demons, andhad been the scene of so many executions by them of those who hadventured near.
As Bertie and his brother sat together by the fire that evening afterthe others had retired to rest, they talked long over the matter; forjust as when they had approached the gold valley, their excitement hadincreased with every day's journey. Harry felt that this was his lastchance, his only hope of gaining the object for which he had leftE
ngland.
"It is strange, Harry," Bertie said, "that the natives should believethese absurd stories about demons. Dias seems, in every other way, assensible a fellow as one can want to meet, but in this respect he is asbad as any of them."
"It is not extraordinary, Bertie, if you remember that it is not sovery long ago since people at home believed in witches who sailedthrough the air to take part in diabolic ceremonies, and brought aboutthe death of anyone by sticking pins into a little waxen image, andthat even now the peasantry in out-of-the-way parts of the countrystill hold that some old women bewitch cows, and prevent milk turninginto butter however long they may continue churning. Fairysuperstitions have not quite disappeared, and the belief in ghosts isvery wide-spread.
"When you think of that it is not surprising that these poor ignorantnatives still have implicit faith in the traditions of their ancestors.It is possible that this old place is still inhabited by Indians, whohave been its guardians for ages, and if not now, may have had chargeof it long after the Spaniards came here, and murdered any who venturedto approach the place. We know that the tradition of the gold valleyhas been faithfully maintained in the family of Dias; this may also bethe case in the family to which the guardianship of this old place wasentrusted, but to my mind it is less likely. In the case of the goldvalley there was nothing for those in the secret to do but to holdtheir tongues; but to supply guardians to this place from generation togeneration must have been a much more irksome task, and it may havebeen abandoned, either from the dislike of those who had to spend theirlives in such a monotonous business, or by their families dying out. Icertainly don't want to have a fight with men who are only followingorders passed down to them for hundreds of years. If they attack us, weshall have to fight; but I sincerely trust that we may find the placedeserted, for, fight or no fight, I mean to get the treasure if it isthere."
"I should think so," Bertie agreed. "The treasure is absolutely of nouse to them, and may be no end of use to you."
"To both of us, Bertie. If there is a treasure, you may be sure it is alarge one, ample for both of us, and to spare. Of course we shall havetrouble in getting it away--the gold would be invaluable to any ofthese rascally adventurers who are a curse to Peru. I really want tosee the place, even putting aside the question of the treasure, for itmust have been extraordinarily well hidden if the Spaniards never cameupon it; and I think there can be no doubt whatever that in thisrespect the traditions must be true. The whole thing would have beenupset if the Spaniards had once paid a visit there, for, from what wesaw at Pachacamac and Cuzco, they spared no exertions whatever to rootout likely hiding-places. The treasure, if there is one, will bedifficult to find, but I have got nearly a year yet, and if necessary Iwill spend the whole of it in digging. Dias could go and get provisionsfor us. Of course he must not always go to the same place. Sometimes hecan go up to Huaura, sometimes down to Chancay or Ancon. This place, hehas told me, lies a mile or two south of the Salinas promontory, whichwould partly account for its escaping notice, for the road from Huaura,as we see on the map, skirts the foot of the hill, and goes straight onto Chancay and Ancon, and there is no earthly reason why anyone shouldgo out to the promontory. People here don't leave the roads and traveleight or ten miles merely to look at the ocean, especially when byfollowing the straight line they would see it without trouble. Well, wehave both had hard work during the past year, what with felling treesto make bridges, chopping logs for fires, making roads practicable bymoving rocks out of the way, occasionally using our picks where Diasthought that there was a lode, and carrying mules' burdens up and downsteep places.
"Altogether it has been a sort of backwoodsman's life, and if there aretreasure-vaults in this place I think we shall be able to get at them,however thick and heavy the stones may be on the top of them."
"I am game," Bertie said. "There is a lot more excitement in workingwhen possibly a treasure lies under your feet than in chopping away attrees, some of which are so hard as almost to turn the edge of an axe.The place cannot be very large, so it won't take us very long if we areobliged to tear up every foot of it. I suppose there cannot be abovethree feet of stone over the mouths of any of these vaults."
"I think, Bertie, that when we have once investigated the place andsettled on our plans, we had better send Dias and Jose down to Callaoto get three or four kegs of powder and some boring tools, besides asupply of provisions. We should get on a lot faster with these thanwith only pickaxes. We shall want a couple of strong iron crowbars forlifting slabs of stone, and of course some fuse for the mines."
"We should have to be careful not to put too much powder in, so as notto bring the whole thing down about our ears."
"Oh, we should not want to make a mine of that sort, but only to blastthe stone as they do in quarries and mines. We should have to make ahole to begin with, by means of our picks and crowbars, in one cornerof the room, two or three feet wide; then we must make a couple ofholes the size of the boring tool, a foot or so away, according to thehardness of the ground, put in charges and fire them, and in that wayblow down the rock into the hole we had made; and so we should go onuntil we had done the whole floor. Of course, the bigger the hole wefirst make--that is to say, the wider the face it has--the easier weshall blow the stone down afterwards. I have watched them blastingstone at Portland, and at some galleries they were making at Gibraltar,and I know pretty well how it is done. Of course it is hard workdriving the borers down, for that we shall want two or three sledges ofdifferent weights. It will make our arms ache at first, but after aweek or two we shall be able to stick to it fairly well. Now we hadbetter turn in. We shall start at daybreak tomorrow. It will take ustwo hours to reach the spot from which Dias said we could see theplace, and another three hours to get to the castle. That will give usa long afternoon to take our first look over it."
"There, senor," Dias said, when at eight o'clock in the morning theystopped on a projecting spur of the hill, "that is the castle!"
From where they stood they could see that the ground fell away intowhat was at first a mere depression, but gradually deepened into avalley half a mile wide. Still farther down the sides became moreprecipitous, and in the distance the valley was closed in by rockwalls, and appeared to come to an end. That it did not do so wasevident from a streak of bright green in the centre of the valley,showing that a small stream must run down it. From the point at whichthey stood they could see the level line of the plateau near the clifffacing the sea, and on the surface of this a dark zigzag line markedthe course of the ravine. Then, when apparently close to thetermination of the flat land by the cliffs, the dark streak widened outsomewhat. Through a small but powerful telescope which Harry carried hecould make out distinctly the upper part of what might be a house.
"It is a strange-looking place for a castle to be built," he said, "butit quite answers to your description, Dias. There are certainly someopenings, which may have been windows. I am sure no one looking fromhere, and ignorant that such a place existed, would notice it, and ofcourse from the valley it could not be seen at all. Even from thisheight I do not think I can see more than ten or twelve feet of theupper part. But surely it must be noticeable to anyone coming along thecliffs?"
"It may be, senor, but I cannot say. Certainly no native would go alongthere even in the daytime. Still, it does seem likely that in theSpanish time some must have ridden along the top of the cliffs, and ifthey had seen the castle it would certainly have been searched.Assuredly it has not been so. I have been at Ancon and Salinas manytimes, and have talked with the people there. They would never speak onthe subject to one of white blood, but knowing that I was of nativeblood, and belonged to one of the families to whom the secret could bestrictly trusted, they were ready enough to talk about the Castle ofDemons. Had the Spaniards ever searched it they would have known, andthe place would no longer be feared; but all say that from the time ofthe conquest by the Spaniards no living being has, as far as is known,entered it."
"Then the I
ncas knew of it, Dias?"
"I think so, senor, though I have not heard that any of them ever livedthere; but tradition says that the vessel in which a great store oftreasure was sent away from Pachacamac, and which, as is proved bySpanish writings, was never heard of afterwards, and doubtless was sunkin a great storm that came on two or three days after it sailed, wasintended to be landed and hidden in this castle, which they thoughtmight well escape the observation of the Spaniards."
"And even among your traditions there is no allusion to what became ofthis treasure ship?"
"No, senor; all traditions say that it was never heard of from the dayit sailed. Had it landed at that castle the secret would have beenhanded down to some of the native families, just as that of the goldenvalley and of other hidden treasures has been. But there can be nodoubt that the ship was lost with all her treasure."
"Well, we need not talk any more about it now, Dias; we shall learnnothing more, however long we stay here and stare at it."
They stopped half an hour for breakfast and then rode down the valley.When they got near the spot where it closed in Harry saw by the palloron the native's face that he was beginning to be greatly alarmed.
"You had better stop here, Dias. My brother and I will go on andexplore this ravine and have a look at the place. We will take someropes with us, for the ravine may be blocked by falls of rocks, and wemay have to let ourselves down. Evidently the water gets to the sea, orthis valley would be a lake like that in the golden ravine, foralthough it is but a mere driblet of water now, you can see by thebanks that a considerable amount comes down in the wet season. How itgets past the castle I don't know; I can only suppose that there is apassage for it underneath the building. We will take both our guns,Bertie, and our pistols. That there are no demons we are quite sure,but the place may have been used as a hiding-place for outlaws andbrigands, who could find no better spot, as there was no fear whateverof its being discovered. We will take some bread and meat in ourhaversacks and a flask of spirits. Perhaps we shall be away longer thanwe expect, Dias, but at any rate we will not stop there after dark."
Tears were in the Indian's eyes as Harry and Bertie said good-bye tohim and started, and when he saw them enter the ravine he sat down withhis elbows on his knees and cried unrestrainedly. His wife went up tohim and put her hand on his shoulder.
"Do not sorrow, Dias; as for me, I have no fear, though I love them aswell as you do. I do not say that there may not be demons in thecastle--everyone says there are;--but though these may strangle ourpeople who break the orders that were given that none should go near, Ido not believe they can hurt our white friends. You saw that they hadno fear; you know how brave they are, and how they laughed at the ideaof the demons having any power over them. Do you think I could smileand talk if I thought they were in danger? Still, as there is no needto prepare dinner yet, I will tell my beads over and over again. Weshall know if any harm comes to them if we hear them fire their guns,for it is certain that they would do so. Even if a legion of demonsattacked them they would never run away, but would fight till the last."
"I love them," Dias said; "I love them as my own sons. At first, whenthey came to me from Senor Barriett, it was for his sake that Iconsented to accompany and aid them; but from that night when theysaved my life by rushing, with no weapons save their sticks, into themidst of five men with drawn knives, I felt how noble they were, and Iloved them not only for the sake of my life, but for their bravery.Since then my feelings have grown every day. Have they not treated usas equals, as they would do people of their own race--us who, by everyPeruvian with white blood in his veins, are looked down upon?"
"It is true, Dias. They have laughed and joked with us, and havetreated me with as much respect as if I had been of pure Spanish blood,and have always done everything they could to make things easy for me.I will not believe God and the Holy Virgin can permit them to beoverpowered by the evil ones. Should it be otherwise, should they neverreturn, I should be inconsolable. It would be to me as if you yourselfhad died, and I should be ready to stab myself to the heart at thethought that we had brought them here."
"I could not live after it either, Maria; but, as you say, I will trustthat God will protect them."
He cut down two rods and fastened them together in the form of a cross,and then he and his wife knelt before it and repeated innumerablepaternosters and Ave Marias, crossing themselves as they did so.
Jose, as soon as he had removed the burdens from the mules and turnedthem out to graze at the edge of the streamlet, came and joined them intheir supplications, occasionally breaking off from the repetition ofthe only prayers he knew, and in his native language imploring thesaints to protect their friends.
"There is no humbug about Dias," Bertie said as they left the others."He is really in a blue funk."
"Yes, he is quite in earnest; and we know that he is no coward in othermatters."
"Certainly not. He showed any amount of pluck in the affair with theIndians. But he seems such a bright, sensible sort of chap, that it isquite funny to hear him going on about his demons. I should not besurprised at anything the ordinary peasant might believe, but it isdifferent with a man like Dias."
"You know, Bertie," Harry said, coming to a sudden stop, "I think weare making a mistake going on into this ravine. I have no belief thatthe place is inhabited; still, there may be desperadoes, and perhaps afew fanatics. It is quite possible that a certain number of familiesbound themselves to keep watch here, and formed a little community thathas lasted to the present day."
"But how could they have lived?"
"We will talk that over, Bertie, if we find any of them there. Now wemust turn back. It is not more than a mile at the outside to the placewhere we can climb the hillside. In that way we shall be able to lookdown into this ravine, and take a general view of the place. We shallknow what we are doing then, whereas if we were to go on through thegorge without knowing anything about it, we might find ourselves caughtin a trap. It won't make half an hour's difference, for the ground upthere will be as good walking as it is here, while we might find allsorts of obstacles in this ravine, and with two guns apiece,ammunition, pistols, coils of rope, food, and so on, we should find itawkward work climbing among heaps of rocks.
"You were saying, How could a group of people exist here for centurieswithout any communication with the outside world? Well, I don't supposethey could. They might get water from the stream, and possibly theremay be some way of getting down to the sea-shore; anyhow, this streammust find a passage when it is in flood. They might have been able toget enough fish for their wants; but a fish-and-water diet wouldscarcely be sufficient.
"At the same time we are by no means sure that they could have had nocommunication with the outside, for just as some families may have beenordered to live here, others may have been instructed to supply themwith food. The watchers may have had a store of gold-dust sufficient tolast them all this time, and their friends outside may have broughtthem a sheep or two, and corn and other articles of necessity once aweek. There could have been no difficulty in doing so. The stories ofdemons, and probably the murder of inquisitive people who tried to pryinto what was going on, created such a dread of the place that those inthe secret would come and go without the slightest difficulty.Conceivably, young men may from time to time have gone out for a yearinto the world and brought back wives with them, or girls may have beensent by the people in league with them outside, and obtained husbands,which is less likely. I should think it was more probable that youngboys and girls would be kidnapped, and brought in here from time totime. All this is pure guesswork, of course, but nevertheless there maybe people here, and it is just as well to take a look round from abovebefore we trust ourselves inside the place."
On gaining the plateau they followed the crest of the valley until theycame to a spot where the ravine appeared to end. They found that infact it made a sharp turn. It was here only some ten feet wide, butsoon broadened out to thirty. Fifty yards farther the
re was anothersharp bend, the ravine narrowed to twenty feet, and the sides becameabsolutely perpendicular. Twenty yards farther still they saw somethinglike a wall about thirty or forty feet high stretching across thegorge, which was here some seventy feet deep. About twenty feet fromthe foot there was a steep ascent of rocks, such as might have fallenthere by a slip from one side or the other. Above these a perpendicularwall rose for another twenty-five feet. Harry and his brother looked atit in surprise from the height at which they stood. Its appearance wasprecisely that of the wall-precipices on each side. It was rough anduneven, and they could see no signs of any joints.
"It looks as if it were natural," Bertie said, "but it can't be."
"No, it must certainly be artificial, but it is a wonderful imitation,and certainly anyone coming up the ravine would suppose that bank ofrocks at the foot had fallen from its face; but we know that it can'tbe that, for the water makes its way through. Besides, you see it isonly three feet wide at the top, and then there is a narrow ledge acouple of feet wide, which was evidently made for the garrison to standupon and shoot their arrows at anyone attempting to come up the ravine.Behind the slope is all rough rocks, except just below our feet, wherethere is a narrow stone staircase of regularly-cut steps. It is sonarrow that it could not be noticed by anyone standing here, unlessthey bent over to look straight down as I am doing. Well, it is just aswell that we made the circuit, for we certainly could not have climbedover there."
Another sharp turn, and the ravine ran straight towards the castle.They hurried on, and when they had gone fifty yards stood at the edgeof a roughly circular pit. It was seventy or eighty feet across,narrowing at each end. At one end was the ravine at whose mouth theywere standing, and directly opposite, in what might be called the neckof the bottle, stood the Castle of the Demons. It was some fifty feetin width, and as it stood back about forty feet up the neck it couldhardly be seen at any point except that at which they were standing.There was no door or other opening at less than some twenty-five feetfrom the ground. At that height was a broad aperture about four feethigh and twelve wide. Above this were several smaller openings aboutfour feet square. The singular point in the structure was a rough archof rock, which extended above it and formed its roof. This archprojected thirty or forty feet in front of the building, so that thelatter had the appearance of standing in a great cave.
"What an extraordinary-looking place!" Bertie said in a low voice.
"Extraordinary, but how splendidly chosen for concealment! You see thetop of the rock above it is level with the ground on either side. Thiswould perfectly well account for people riding along the line of thecliffs, and passing over without dreaming that there was a house belowthem. Even if they went to the edge on this side, they would simply seethis deep pit and the ravine beyond, but could not by any possibilityobtain a sight of the house unless they came round to nearly where weare standing, which they could have no possible motive for doing.Besides, you see, all the way we have been passing through a thickbush; and I have no doubt that in the old time a wood stood here,possibly planted by the builders of the house. Of course the archexisted before the house was built. The stratum below was probablysofter, and the stream gradually trickled through, and perhaps in somegreat flood, when this basin was full, burst its way out, after whichthe rock gradually fell until it formed that great natural arch."
"Well, let us go round and have a look at the other side."
They found that the width of the arch to the sea cliff was a hundredand fifty feet.
"If the castle extends to this face, Bertie, it is a hundred feetacross, but from here we can't see whether it does so. It is probablybuilt flush, however, as Dias said that it was not noticeable from thesea, and had the arch projected beyond it it could certainly have beenseen."
"Well, Harry, if you will tie a rope round my waist you can let medown, and I will have a look at it. You can hold me easily enough ifyou stand twenty feet back from the edge, and you won't have to pull meup, because I can easily climb up the rope by myself. I need not godown more than thirty or forty feet, and I can do that easily enough."
"Oh, I could pull you up, Bertie."
"Well, you could do that if by any chance I should get tired; then Icould give a shout, and you could haul on the rope."
"There are lots of stumps of trees here, Bertie, and I can take half aturn round one of them and so let you down easily; then when you shoutI will fasten the rope there and come to the edge, and I can hearwhether you want me to haul or not. Of course it must depend whetherthere are any jagged rocks sticking out. If so, it would be better foryou to climb, as the rope might chafe against them if I pulled."
"I understand." Bertie laid down his weapons and water-flask, made aloop at the end of one of the ropes they had brought large enough forhim to sit in, then he looked for a spot where the short grass extendedto the very edge. "This is a good place, and the rope won't chafe as itruns over that. Now I am ready. If you will go back to that stumpfifteen feet away and let it out gradually, I will be off."
He knelt down, and putting the rope over his head took a firm hold ofit just above the loop, and then crawled backwards, his brother keepingthe rope taut. "Slack it out gradually now," Bertie said; "I am justover."
Directly afterwards his shoulders disappeared. Harry let the ropeslowly out until he calculated that fifty feet were over the cliff,then he fastened it very securely round the stump and went forward tothe edge.
"Are you all right, Bertie?" he shouted.
"Quite right."
The face of the rock was very even, and there was nothing for the ropeto chafe against. Harry lay down at the edge, keeping a firm hold ofthe rope to prevent himself from slipping over, and was able to lookdown on Bertie.
"Well, Bertie, what is it?"
"It is the wall of the house, I have no doubt, but it is so cleverlybuilt that I can scarcely see where the arch ends and the house begins.Looking quite close I can see where the stones join, but their face hasbeen left rough; and as it is just the same colour as the rocks, andlines have been cut down its face, and cracks made across it answeringto the lines in the rock on both sides, I am sure I should not haveknown it was built up unless I had examined it. It is much narrower onthis side than on the other--not more than twenty-five feet, I shouldsay. There seem to be some irregularly-shaped holes in what looks likea fissure in the middle. I suppose they are to light the rooms on thisside of the house, but they are certainly too small to be noticed fromthe sea."
"Does the sea come right up to the foot of the cliff?"
It was a minute before the answer came. "The water comes to the foot,but there is a line of rocks running along forty or fifty feet fartherout. Some of them seem to be thirty feet out of the water; at one endthey touch the cliff, and at the other there is a free passage. Thewater is very clear, but as far as I can judge I should say there is adepth of a fathom or a fathom and a half between the rocks and thecliff. Certainly a boat could row in to a position underneath where Iam."
"Is there anything more?"
"No."
"You don't see an entrance down here?"
"No."
"All right! Then you may as well come up again. Can you climb up?"
"Easily."
"Well, hail me if you want me to haul."
Harry went back to the stump, unwound the rope until it was only half aturn round it, and then, holding it firmly, stood ready to haul up.