CHAPTER VIII

BALLINTAGGART CAVE

Some weeks passed over uneventfully. May was almost ended, and June was coming in with its cloudless skies and long, clear twilights. Poor Norah, during those days, had many secret pangs of grief and jealousy as she watched the growing friendship between Manus and Lanty Hogan. In London she and Manus had been the closest companions, sharing all each other's possessions and amusements, but now Norah was reluctantly driven to perceive that her company no longer sufficed to content Manus, and that she could not hope to compete against Lanty's greater attractions. There were few mornings indeed on which Lanty's shock head did not make its appearance at the back door soon after breakfast, and then it would be:

"Sure now, 'tis a grand marnin' for the fishin', Masther Manus, afther the rain, an' there'll be a great rise on the trout intirely. 'Deed now, I wudn't wondher but we'd be gettin' the full o' the basket."

Or else:

"Glory be to goodness, Masther Manus, there's a schull o' mackarel in the bay, the say's shtiff wid 'em, it's jostlin' one another out o' the wather they is, an' whin we've had our divarsion wid thim theer boys, we might have a thry for a few cormorants' eggs, if yer honour had a mind for't. The say's that calm, the coracle wud float us in amongst the rocks as aisy as if 'twas a duck settin' on a horse-pond."

Norah shed a few tears in secret sometimes when she had watched her brother and his ally go off on one of these expeditions, whilst she was left behind to find what amusement she could for herself. She took herself severely to task, like a loyal little soul as she was, for grudging Manus any pleasure merely because she could have no part in it; and when Manus came home at night, bringing back his trophies and brimming over with accounts of his own and Lanty's adventures, Norah was nearly as proud and delighted as he was himself. Yet that did not hinder her from experiencing the same feelings of loneliness and desertion the next time Manus and Lanty went off fishing or sailing together.

Anstace had her doubts as to whether Lanty's constant companionship was likely to be of benefit to Manus. She spoke to Roderick on the subject, but he laughed her fears away.

"You don't expect to keep a boy of Manus's age about the house like a tame cat, do you? Nonsense, let him go about with that red-headed young scamp as much as he likes, and learn to row and fish and climb the rocks. I only wish I'd had the same chance when I was his age, I'd be twice the man that I am now."

A glance of loving admiration from Anstace said plainly that in her estimation Roderick was already perfect, and could not possibly have been improved upon. Roderick was her special brother, as Manus was Norah's. Concerning Lanty, however, she remained of the same opinion as before, though she attempted no further remonstrance.

One bright, sunny afternoon Lanty appeared at the kitchen door with an air of unusual mystery.

"Whisht, Masther Manus," he said, "there's bin spring tides this couple o' days past, an' the say's that smooth as ye'd not see't twiced in the twal' month, no, nor maybe wanst. If you an' me was to be havin' that little adventure wid the sales in Ballintaggart Cave, that we've talked of, 'twud be the day for't an' no mistake."

Manus hesitated. "I told Mr. Roderick about it, Lanty, and he said he'd come with us, whatever day we went, with his gun and try a shot. He didn't think it would be safe for you and me to tackle the seals by ourselves, with nothing but clubs."

"'Tis himself that knows, that niver was next nor nigh a sale before," Lanty muttered under his breath. Aloud he said, "An' wudn't his honour come wid us this day, it's no finer one we'll be gettin'?"

"He and Miss Anstace have driven into Ballyfin, you see, and they won't be home till evening."

"Faix thin, that's the chanst for us," said Lanty, with a knowing look. "We'll take the gun an' be off wid ourselves, unbeknownst. His honour can't say as we wasn't well armed, anyways, an' if we get killin' of a sale, I'll be bound it's not displazed he'll be, but quite contrary."

Manus still hesitated; he had some qualms as to whether he ought to venture on the enterprise in Roderick's absence, and without his leave. But a visit to Ballintaggart Cave, famed as the resort of seals, had been one of the most alluring schemes which Lanty had held out to him. Manus knew that the cave could only be visited on rare occasions--at extreme low tide, and only then when the state of the weather permitted--so that few even of the fishermen upon the coast had ever entered it, and a chance once lost might not recur again.

"All right, I'll come," he said briefly, and Lanty intimated his satisfaction by a nod.

"We'll have no need to be burnin' daylight over the job," he said. "Wanst the tide turns 'twill be hurry out an' no mistake. If ye'll be at Portkerin in half an hour, Masther Manus, wid the gun, I'll meet ye there wid the oars an' all else we'll be needin'."

Neither Lanty nor Manus had any idea that there had been a listener to their colloquy. The dairy window was close to where they stood, screened and overshadowed by a clump of tall shrubs that grew outside it, and Norah had been standing just within. She had had no intention of playing eavesdropper, but it had never occurred to her that Manus and Lanty could have anything to say to each other which it was not open to all the rest of the family to listen to. When they separated, however, and she heard Lanty's footsteps dying away outside, whilst Manus ran whistling into the house and upstairs, a sudden wild desire took possession of her. She too had heard of the wondrous, seal-tenanted cave. Why should not she be one of the party about to visit it? If she were to beg Manus to take her with him she would only meet with a contemptuous refusal, she knew that well enough; but if she were down upon the shore when they were starting, perhaps she might prevail upon them to let her go too. Deep down in Norah's heart, perhaps, besides her desire to see the cave, there was the thought that, if she were to prove herself a competent comrade upon the present occasion, Manus might not disdain her company occasionally in the future on his fishing and boating excursions. Poor Norah's aspirations were very humble; all she desired was to accompany Manus, much as a faithful dog accompanies his master, to watch him whilst he fished, or sit in the boat which he rowed, and she hoped to be able to convince him that the mere fact of being a girl did not of necessity disqualify her from such lowly participation in his pursuits.

She knew that Lanty kept his boat at Portkerin, a little cove about half a mile away, and having made her escape out of the house unseen, Norah raced thither at flying speed. A break-neck track, hardly to be called a path, trodden only by the feet of the fisherfolk, led down from the cliffs to the strip of sandy beach below, on which two or three coracles were lying, keel upwards, well above high-water mark.

When Manus and Lanty came down the track together half an hour later--Manus walking first, and feeling himself of no small consequence with Roderick's gun over his shoulder and a well-filled cartridge-pouch slung round him--their astonishment was great at finding Norah in the cove before them, a solitary little figure sitting on a block of gray stone, where the sand and the bent--the coarse sea-grass--met.

"Hullo, Norah, whatever are you doing here, sitting by yourself like a thingummy in the wilderness?" was Manus's greeting.

Norah sprang to her feet, breathlessly eager.

"I want to go to Ballintaggart Cave with you," she cried. "I heard you and Lanty settling to go, Manus; I was behind you in the dairy, and I ran all the way to be here before you. Do let me come!"

"Rubbish!" said Manus loftily. "Do you suppose you're fit to go after seals? A fine funk you'd be in when it came to going into the cave, and you'd scream if the gun were fired."

"I should not," Norah retorted indignantly. "I was standing close to Roderick when he shot a magpie the other day, and I didn't scream; I didn't even put my fingers in my ears, and I don't mind going into dark places either."

"An' why shouldn't she come if she's minded for't, the darlin' young leddy?" broke in Lanty. "Afeard? Troth, not she, an' her an O'Brien born! Yis, come along, Miss Norah, an' I'll take care of ye, niver fear."

Norah repaid his championship of her cause by a look of the most rapturous gratitude. Lanty hoisted the coracle on to his back, and started off towards the sea with it, looking to the two children, as they followed him, very much like a gigantic black beetle reared upon its hind-legs. Norah essayed to make herself useful by bringing the oars, which Lanty had been obliged to lay down, along with her, but as she carried them awkwardly, crosswise in her arms, not sailor-fashion over her shoulder, she provoked some uncomplimentary remarks about the "butter-fingeredness" of girls from Manus, who stalked airily along, only carrying the gun. Manus, to say the truth, was in a somewhat ungracious mood, for it seemed to him that this visit to the seals' cave would not appear at all as tremendous a feat to have achieved if it became known that his younger sister had accompanied him. However, by the time the coracle was launched, and they were floating out upon the deep, green water, his ill-humour had evaporated, and he was laughing and chatting gaily with Lanty.

There were only seats for the two rowers in the frail little craft. Norah had to sit down flat in the stern, with her feet straight out in front of her, and her head not far above the gunwale. At first she could not help feeling some internal tremors as the coracle skimmed the sea, its very buoyancy, as it topped the waves and slid down into the hollows between them, giving it a peculiar dancing motion which was painfully suggestive of instability. It was somewhat alarming, too, to look at the tarred canvas stretched over the rude wooden framework, and to reflect that it was all that separated her from the deep sea all round, and that the smallest injury, a pin-prick even, would bring the salt water gurgling in. However, after a few minutes, finding that the coracle, bob as it might upon the waves, showed no inclination to upset, Norah's fears subsided, and she even began to enjoy the lapping of the wavelets so close beside her, and to gaze up in awe at the black cliffs that towered above their heads, and which looked so much loftier from below than when they were viewed from the top.

They hed three miles to row to the cave of Ballintaggart, and it took them the best part of an hour to accomplish it. They passed Moyross Abbey on the way, with its little glen wooded to the water's edge, and the house standing high on the cliff above. A little farther on Lanty pointed out to Norah the ironwork pier which Mr. O'Brien had constructed years before for the shipping of the ore from his mine. It jutted out into the sea, protected from the great Atlantic rollers by a long wall of rock, which seemed as though it had been specially designed by nature for a breakwater. A zigzag track had been cut out of the face of the cliff, and the trollies ran down it to discharge their loads into the holds of the ships lying at the pier below.

No ship was in waiting there now, and an ugly scowl came upon Lanty's face as he looked over at the scarped rocks and the slender framework of the pier.

"The curse o' the crows on M'Bain, an' the notions he's puttin' in th' ould masther's head," he muttered. "'Tis a cliver pair they thinks themselves, but maybe the boys might larn them that they was cliverer yet."

Norah remembered that she had overheard Roderick speaking very gravely to Anstace a few days ago about the disagreement between Mr. O'Brien and the miners, concerning the innovations introduced by the new manager. "I fear there will be bad work before all is over," he had said. No questioning on her part or Manus's could elicit anything more from Lanty, however.

"'Twasn't manin' anythin' in partic'lar he was, but just a manner o' spakin'!" he declared, and relapsed into a dogged silence.

Ballintaggart Cave, which they reached at length, was situated at the end of a narrow inlet, a fissure in the cliffs, guarded by a ridge of rocks which showed above the water like a row of jagged teeth, and round which the sea swirled and foamed. It required extreme care to guide the coracle through the narrow passage, for a touch from the rocks on either hand would have ripped the canvas open as with a knife. Once within the reef, however, they floated in calm water in a tiny natural harbour. Before them was a low, dark opening--the entrance to the cave--which was generally covered by the sea, preventing any access to the interior. Now, however, the sea had receded sufficiently to leave bare not only the mouth of the cave, but also a narrow strip of firm, white sand, which sloped to the water's edge.

Lanty leaped overboard, and dragged the coracle up this little strand by main force, lifting Norah out carefully afterwards. He stooped and examined the sand, and pointed with much exultation to tracks that led upwards into the darkness of the cave.

"Thim theer boys is at home, sure enough," he whispered. "'Twill be a poor thing an' we don't give an account o' wan or two o' thim. The tide's flowin' too," he went on, looking critically at the margin of the sand. "We'll need to hurry ourselves an' we wudn't be wantin' to swim out."

The preparations for the adventure were speedily made. Lanty produced a torch made of pieces of split bog-wood tied together and saturated with inflammable oil, and a few chips besides, similarly soaked, which he stuck in his hat, and signed to Manus to stick into his. Then, still in silence, he placed two cartridges in the breech of Manus's gun and handed it back to him.

"Kape close to me, an' don't fire till I give the word," he whispered. "Miss Norah, will ye shtop out here an' wait for us while we go in?"

But no, Norah was determined to prove her courage and go through with the adventure to the bitter end. Perhaps, if the truth had been told, she was not very willing to be left alone on that narrow strip of sand between the deep sea and the lofty cliffs that towered sheer above her. She preferred to face even the darkness of the cave, and the possibility of a rush of angry seals, so that she had at least living companionship. None the less, however, her heart beat thick and fast as she followed Lanty and Manus up to the low archway which gave access to the seals' retreat.

Lanty went first, the blazing torch in his left hand, a short bludgeon, loaded at the end with lead, in his right. There was a yard or two of slimy passage and then the cave opened out into an underground chamber of considerable extent, floored with the same white sand that composed the strand outside. Lanty stooped and examined it closely with his torch. The tracks were still visible, leading upwards into the innermost recesses of the cave. Without speaking a word he pushed Norah back till she stood in a sort of recess just within the arch by which they had entered, and lighting one of the bog-wood chips that adorned his own hat, he stuck it in hers.

"Stand ye theer, Miss Norah, an' don't stir a ha'porth," lie whispered, with his mouth close to her ear. "'Tis the doore they'll make for, an' ye're safe out o' their road. Masther Manus an' me we'll folly on."

Norah stood still as she was bidden, and watched the light of Lanty's torch growing gradually more and more distant till it showed only like a twinkling star far up within the cavern. A moment later it was gone altogether, and Norah was left alone, the strange candle in her hat throwing a feeble radiance on the yellow sea-weed that clothed the rock beside her, and on the sand at her feet. She could have screamed aloud, merely for the relief of hearing her own voice in the silence that surrounded her, but the fear of incurring Manus's contempt kept her from uttering a sound, and she stood motionless, clutching the long tangles of sea-weed in her hands as if even their cold and clammy touch gave a certain sense of comfort and support.

Lanty and Manus meanwhile were making their way slowly and with much difficulty up into the interior of the cave. The firm, white sand with which it was floored at its mouth soon gave place to rocky debris and great boulders, over which they had to clamber, as best they could, by the uncertain light of the torch. As they proceeded, the cave gradually narrowed till it formed a mere passage a hundred yards or more in length, and so low that they had to bend nearly double to avoid striking their heads against the roof. It was necessary to advance with extreme caution here, since they might at any moment encounter a charge of infuriated seals, for seals, though in general most peaceful and inoffensive animals, yet become savage if they are brought to bay.

The passage opened out, as Lanty, who had visited the cave once before, knew, into a circular rocky chamber known as the "Seals' Parlour", and here at last they found their quarry. A large male seal, but fortunately for them only one, the rest of the herd having made their way out again before their visit, was lying at his ease upon a slab of rock. He gazed for a moment with a calm, sage air of wonderment at his unexpected and unwelcome visitors, then with a heavy flop he slipped from his couch and made, with an awkward, shuffling gait, for the passage they had just come by, the only way of escape to the sea.

"Fire, Masther Manus, fire!" shouted Lanty, and Manus, bringing his gun up to his shoulder and aiming as well as his excitement would permit, pulled the trigger. There was a flash, a deafening bang and cloud of smoke, and before the noise had died away the seal charged straight for Manus, between whose legs it sought to pass. Manus was swept off his feet by the rush, and fell right before the seal, which gripped him fiercely by the arm as he lay.

So close were boy and animal together that it was impossible to strike at one without risk of injuring the other. Lanty, all the same, seeing the extremity of Manus's danger, whirled his club round his head and brought it down with such terrific force that the seal rolled, over, dead, with its skull shattered like an egg-shell. Manus scrambled to his feet again, hugely frightened but unhurt; the seal happily had only caught the sleeve of his jacket, but the long rent which its tusks had made showed plainly what the result would have been if they had closed upon the flesh of his arm.

"Glory be to goodness, Masther Manus, but that might ha' been the mischief's own job!" panted Lanty, breathless between terror and the exertion that he had just made; "but sure what matther, so that the ould ruffin hasn't ye desthroyed."

"Oh, I'm all right!" said Manus proudly, beginning to feel himself something of a hero as he looked at his fallen foe. "All the same I should have been in Queer Street only for you, Lanty. And now, however are we going to get the brute along?"

This, indeed, seemed a task not very easy to accomplish, for the seal was nearly as heavy as a well-grown sheep, and considerably longer, whilst its slippery, glossy hide made it extremely difficult to catch hold of. Lanty, however, giving the torch to Manus, went vigorously to work to convey it back over the rough road by which they had come, alternately dragging and shoving the heavy carcass over the rocks which impeded their course.

To Norah, meanwhile, the leaden moments had seemed like hours as they crawled along, and she waited vainly to hear the sound of voices or catch a glimmer of the returning torch. All sorts of horrible fancies began to crowd into her brain. What if Manus and Lanty had encountered a whole host of furious seals or even more ferocious sea-monsters--for who could tell what terrible shapes and creatures might dwell far up in the inmost recesses of the cave? They might be lying wounded or dying somewhere far underground, where no one had ever penetrated before, or perhaps they had lost their way in those subterranean windings and passages, and were vainly trying to retrace their steps. What if she were to be left there whilst the tide came slowly creeping up over the strip of sand outside, and closed the arch by which they had entered, prisoning her and the others within!

With trembling hands Norah groped upwards. The rock was covered with sea-weed far above her head, as far as she could reach. To that height, then, the tide must rise when it was at its fullest, and Norah, in her terror at making this discovery, would have screamed aloud, forgetful of Manus's disdain, for already she pictured herself shut in in the dark cave and drowning inch by inch as the water rose slowly around her.

An iron grip, however, seemed to be upon her throat, compressing it and preventing her from uttering a sound. It was an unreasoning panic after all, begotten of the darkness and the solitude, since the way of escape was at any rate still open, and Lanty's coracle floated safely in the little basin outside, and it was ended in another minute by a sharp ringing sound, the shot fired by Manus in the Seals' Parlour, which pealed and reverberated from rock to rock till the cavern seemed alive with echoes.

A pause followed, during which Norah held her breath to listen, and then there came a shout, very faint and far away indeed, but none the less cheering and reassuring, especially as it was followed by another and another, for Manus, now that the necessity for silence and caution was at an end, was endeavouring, by a series of joyous halloos, to apprise her of their whereabouts and the victory which they had achieved. Manus and Lanty were alive then, they were coming back to her, and Norah all at once became ashamed of her foolish fears of a minute or two before, and realized that after all she could not have been left so very long by herself.

She had to wait a considerable time longer, however, before the first gleam of the torch reappeared in view; but when it did, rather than bear the suspense any longer, she started off to meet her brother and his companion, stumbling as best she could in the darkness over the fallen rocks and boulders, and guided by the lights which were growing larger and more distinct every moment.

"Hullo, so there you are!" cried Manus jubilantly. "We've got something to show you that'll make you open your eyes. Look here, what do you think of that?"

And he held the torch aloft to let its light fall on the dead seal with its long tusks and dark velvety hide.

Norah instinctively shrank from contact with the slimy carcass, which emitted a strong and by no means agreeable odour, and contented herself with gazing at it with awe and admiration from a respectful distance.

"Did you shoot it?" she enquired of her brother.

"Well, no," Manus admitted. "I fired at him, but I'm not sure that I hit him. I didn't kill him at any rate, for he made for me and knocked me over. I'd have been done for if Lanty hadn't come down on him with his club. There, that's something like a whack!"

And Manus pointed to the seal's battered skull.

"Oh, Manus, he might have killed you!" said Norah, horror-stricken.

"Well, he might, but you see he didn't; he only tore my coat," Manus returned philosophically, displaying the jagged rent which the seal's tusks had made.

In his secret soul he felt himself no small hero at bearing off such traces of the conflict, and was already figuring to himself with much pride how high this adventure would raise him in the estimation of the other boys on his return to school. Bodkin Major, who came from Galway, and hunted in the Christmas holidays, had hitherto been regarded as the Nimrod of the school, and a fox's brush, which had been presented to him for keeping up with special gallantry during one most notable run, had been the envy and admiration of all his school-fellows. But Manus felt, with much inward elation, that beside the slaughter of the seal deep in the bowels of the rocks, even Bodkin Major's fox-hunting exploits would fade into nothingness.

The wavelets were lapping almost up to the mouth of the cave when they emerged from under the low arch, winking and blinking as their eyes once more encountered the full light of day. Manus, who had been torch-bearer on the return journey, tossed the bog-wood torch, which had burnt down almost to the handgrip, hissing into the sea, whilst Lanty, not without considerable difficulty, hoisted the seal into the coracle.

"Bedad, Miss Norah," said the latter, when they had taken their seats in the canvas-covered bark once more, and he was shoving off with his oar, "ye've bate the whoule world out. Sure ye're the first leddy that iver wint sale-huntin' in Ballintaggart Cave, an' 'tis like ye'll be the last."