Page:The House On The Cliff.pdf/143

 Then Frank began to lower himself from the rock on which he was standing into the water.

"If it isn't too deep we can wade around," he whispered.

The water, fortunately, was shallow, and did not come up to his knees. He signaled to Joe to follow, and Joe accordingly slipped quietly down into the water beside him.

Then, without a word and moving as slowly as possible, Frank went on, wading through the water, close to the outstretched branches that overhung the shore.

It seemed as though they were wading at the bottom of a deep pit, for the high walls of rock ranged all about them and after they had penetrated into the cove some little distance the entrance was lost to view, being hidden by an angle of the cliffs. When they looked up they could see the gloomy greyness of the night sky above.

The cove was still in deep silence, so finally Frank concluded that the men who had entered the place in the boat had retired to some secret hiding place. Inasmuch as they could not hope to discover anything without a light, he withdrew the flashlight from its case, and then switched it on.

The yellow beam of light revealed the pallid leaves of the bushes by the shore and the naked walls of rock above. But although Frank