Page:Guy Mannering Vol 2.djvu/224

214 the spot where the body was found, that the smugglers might have heard from their hiding-place the various conjectures of the bye-standers concerning the fate of their victim. But nothing could be more completely concealed than the entrance to their asylum. The opening, not larger than that of a fox-earth, lay in the face of the cliff directly behind a large black rock, or rather upright stone, which served at once to conceal it from strangers, and as a mark to point out its situation to those who used it as a place of retreat. The space between the stone and the cliff was exceedingly narrow, and being heaped with sand and other rubbish, the most minute search would not have discovered the mouth of the cavern, without removing those substances which the tide had heaped before it. For the purpose of farther concealment, it was usual with the contraband traders who used this haunt, after they had entered, to stuff the mouth with withered sea-weed, loosely piled together as if drifted there by the waves.