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Aleck saw no more of Willie Wrighton, midshipman, for two years, and then he came on a visit to the Den. The next morning the two young men went for a stroll along the cliffs to have a look at the rocky chaos which had once formed the cave.
The cavern was lighter now than the two prisoners had ever seen it, so that Tom was able to have a good look; and he finished off by trotting down as near to the mouth of the great place as he could, and then turning to Aleck. "There," he said, "I think we might venture out now. You can swim out now without having to dive. What do you say, Mr Wrighton, sir?" "I think we ought to go at once."
"No," said Aleck, shading his eyes. "Yes, I do. How he is changed! Why, Eben Megg, I hardly knew you again without your beard." "Glad to see you, Master Aleck," said the man, warmly. "Mr Wrighton here was good enough to bring me along with him to see the old place.
"And the orficer there from the Revenoo cutter, he says: `You find the body o' young Mr Wrighton of the man-o'-war sloop, and there'll be the same reward for that." "Humph! I should have thought I was worth more than that," said the midshipman. "Ay, ay, sir!" cried Tom Bodger, who was squeezing his shirt and breeches as he talked.
"Here, we'll go for a run to Rockabie and back, Eben; come and take the helm and show Mr Wrighton how the smugglers could run a boat close in among the rocks. You know; the same as you did that night." "Ay, ay, sir. Come along, Tom. Shall we go round to the Den gully and fetch her, sir? We could run in up the channel below here, and pick you up? Bodger says the channel's quite clear."
Brown thinks there's a cargo to be run somewhere and that the men are here to make arrangements for getting it inland." "What, right under our noses?" said the midshipman. "Of course; that's a far better way than right under our eyes, my lad. Give way, lads. I want to get aboard, Mr Wrighton, to hear what the captain and the lieutenant of the cutter have to say."
"That will do, Eben I'll trust you; and as you're going to do your best now I don't think Mr Mr " "Wrighton," said the middy. "Mr Wrighton will want to be hard on a man who wants to escape from being pressed. How long will it be before it's safe to go up?" "I daren't go till it's midnight, my lad.
Poole," said the slim man, uncovering and saluting obsequiously, and then seeing that my aunt rested dumb-stricken, the rod which had been in pickle fallen to the floor behind her, he added with a little mincing smile and a kind of affected heel-and-toe dandling of his body, "I am Mr. Wrighton Poole, of the firm of Smart, Poole, and Smart of Dumfries."
"After him!" yelled the middy to his men, as he stood stamping one foot in his excitement; and then turning to Aleck: "If the cat don't scratch his back for this my name's not Wrighton." The communication was made in quite a friendly, confidential way, which brought a response from Aleck: "He'll be too quick for them. The young dogs are as quick as congers." "You wait and you'll see.
"Well, sir, it's a wery artful sort o' place, I will say that. Lot o' good things stored up here, I s'pose?" "Plenty." "Hah! Is there now? Well, it means some prize money, Mr Wrighton, sir, and enough to get a big share." "And I deserve it, my man," said the middy, with something of his old consequential way; "but let's get out into the daylight.
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