"Listen," said Beth suddenly.

She spoke in a gasp, the toneless whisper of someone who is frightened.

From far above them came sounds, sometimes of light tapping, sometimes as if a man were scraping at the roof of the cave. Jimmy struck another match, one of the last left in his box, and held it out in front of him. They had reached the end of the cave. The roof above them descended sharply and met a wall of solid rock through which there was no possibility of passing. But in the roof there was a hole. The match held aloft revealed it, very black, wide as the chimneys of the fireplaces to be found in old houses. It was from the hole that the sounds of tapping and scraping came.

Suddenly from very far up came a new sound, a distant rattling. It increased and drew nearer. A large stone, striking the sides of the chimney sharply as it descended, crashed at their feet and was shattered into atoms.

Such a thing was alarming enough without any suggestion of the supernatural about it. The force with which the stone struck the ground showed that it had fallen from a considerable height. Jimmy seized Beth by the arm and pulled her to one side of the cave, out of reach of other stones which might come crashing down.

"Oh," gasped Beth, "what is it?"

"Sounds rather like a smuggler's ghost pelting us," said Jimmy. "A damned dangerous thing to do in a place like this without shouting 'Heads' or 'Fore' or any kind of warning."

"Jimmy," said Beth, "I'm terrified."

She was experiencing for the first time in her life a kind of fear which she had often laughed at. It is easy enough to be cheerfully sceptical about ghosts in broad daylight and among familiar things, or to boast of immunity from spookiness when nothing unusual is happening. It is quite another matter when stones take to falling out of a black unknown into a narrow, gloomy place, where every movement and every word make hollow sounds, horribly suggestive of infernal things, when the terrifying crash echoes from rocks on the right, on the left and above, when there is no way of accounting for such happenings. Then cheery scepticism is likely to be chased away by awe. Beth was a prey to the kind of fear in which investigators of the occult find a painful delight, an excruciating ecstasy, which, in apologising to the rest of us, the experimenters call scientific curiosity.

She clung tight to Jimmy's arm with both hands.

For a minute or two they stood waiting and listening. No more stones dropped down the chimney. The noise of tapping and scratching which they had heard ceased. There was complete silence, as dull and heavy as the atmosphere of the cave. It was Jimmy who broke it. He had been puzzled by the noise above him and startled by the falling stone, but he had not felt the fear of the supernatural which had swept over Beth. When he spoke it was in a tone very reassuring to the girl who clung to him.

"Futile sort of old ghost," he said. "I don't call one stone much of a demonstration, do you?"

"But," said Beth, who was recovering her self-possession, "it wasn't really a ghost. I mean to say, it couldn't have been. But what was it? Who dropped the stone?"

"If you ask me, I'm inclined to think——"

There he stopped abruptly. The noises of tapping and scraping had begun again. Tap, tap, tap, far up above their heads, and then a crunching sound. It was as if someone at a considerable distance was striking with a pickaxe and shovelling up loose earth. Jimmy listened intently.

"If you ask me," he repeated, "I'm inclined to think that somebody is trying to knock a hole in the roof of this cave. What's above us here, Beth?"

"I don't know," said Beth. "The cliff, I suppose."

"Well, then, there's somebody on the top of the cliff digging a hole. Can't imagine what he wants to do such a thing for!"

He struck a match and looked up. The hole, a large space of inky blackness, was some six feet from the ground. It was wide and the rocks at its side were jagged.

"If I could get a grip on that craggy bit that is sticking out," said Jimmy, "I could pull myself up into the hole. It's probably easy enough climbing after that. Just stand clear for a minute while I jump. I'll have a try at it."

But Beth was not inclined to let him try. Instead of standing clear she clung to him more tightly than before.

"Don't do it, Jimmy," she said.

"Still nervous about the smuggler's ghost?"

"I'm not thinking about ghosts. Suppose another stone came down when you were halfway up that chimney?"

That was a real peril and Jimmy was obliged to consider it. Jammed tight in what might very well prove to be a narrow passage he would be quite defenceless against a falling stone. As if to emphasise the reality of the risk, there came rumbling and clattering down the chimney a shower of pebbles and loose earth. Beth was startled again—so startled, that she loosed her grasp round Jimmy's elbow and flung her arms round his neck.

"Jimmy, dearest," she said, "you'll be killed if you go."

It is very likely that he would have been killed, for a small avalanche of stones, pebbles and earth came rushing down. The loose debris clattered and crashed on the floor of the cave, some of the stones rolling up to Beth's feet. Jimmy pulled her back still further from the hole.

"Don't go, Jimmy," she said.

"All right. I won't. It's not good enough. But I say, Beth——"

Relieved of her fear for him and far enough from the hole to feel safe herself, Beth realised that she was clinging very close to Jimmy. The position, though very pleasant for him, was embarrassing for her. She drew away quickly.

"I say, Beth," said Jimmy, "don't do that. What I mean to say is, go on doing that. Don't you think you ought to?"

"I'm quite sure I ought not. I can't think how I came to do it."

"If I say I'm going up the hole, you might do it again. Would you?"

"Certainly not."

"But when we're married," said Jimmy, "you'll more or less have to. I mean to say, it's the regular thing then. So I've always understood. And as we're engaged to be married now——"

"We're not."

"Well, as good as engaged."

"We're not as good as engaged. I've told you that a dozen times at least, Jimmy. The most that I ever said was that we might be some time or other."

"Can't see why not now," said Jimmy. "Here we are facing unknown dangers together, practically in the dark, and I've only one match left, pelted with stones by the ghosts of desperate smugglers, lost in the depths of a cavern measureless to man. If you won't agree to marry me now, Beth, I don't see how you ever will. It's a priceless opportunity. In all the novels I've ever read the heroine's maidenly resistance invariably collapses in the hour of peril—far less peril than ours, generally only a lion or a painted savage, absolutely nothing to a vengeful ghost."

"Jimmy, dear, don't be silly. I'm still a little frightened. Let's get out of this."

"If you're unmoved by the romance of the situation, though I don't see how anyone can be—— I say, just listen to that." The remote digger was apparently working harder than ever. The blows of iron on stone sounded clear and frequent. "How can you refuse to fall into the arms of your lover when a ghost is digging his own grave a few feet above your head?"

"Do talk sense, Jimmy, and take me out of this."

"I will. I'll do both. Talk sense first and then take you away. Uncle Evie was at me last night about you."

"About me?"

"Asking me why the deuce I didn't marry you."

"Is that what you call talking sense? Sir Evelyn couldn't have said that?"

"He did. He put it to me at the point of the bayonet. I can't remember his exact words, but what they amounted to was this: If I didn't marry you, he would. Now what do you say to that?"

"I say that you've got an extraordinarily inventive mind. Also that you oughtn't to tell lies about your uncle."

"It's not a lie," said Jimmy, "though I admit it's not the whole truth. The suggestion was that I should marry either you or Mary and that he'd marry the other, or rather that he'd marry one of you and I'd marry the other. I give you my solemn word of honour that that's what passed between us last night after you'd gone to bed."

"You give me your solemn word of honour that Sir Evelyn suggested——"

"As a matter of actual fact," said Jimmy, "the suggestion came from me. But Uncle Evie quite fell in with it. Quite. He hadn't a word to say against it."

"Very well," said Beth, "I'll marry your Uncle Evie as soon as he asks me, and then you can marry Mary if she'll have you, which she probably won't. So now that's settled."

"Very well. I'll give you a wedding present and all that. But now what about marrying me after Uncle Evie dies? I don't want him to die, for he's always been very decent to me. Still, nobody lives for ever, and he's well over sixty. What do you say to that?"

"If I'm ever left a widow and you're a widower about the same time—don't forget you promised to marry Mary—I'll marry you. Will that satisfy you?"

"It doesn't in the least. But I suppose it's as much as I'll get out of you to-day."

"You won't get even that unless you take me out of this beastly cave where I'm smothering for want of air and terrified out of my senses."

They stumbled back together to the bend in the cave from which it was possible to see the sunlight. Beth drew a deep breath of relief and hurried forward, as fast as it was possible to hurry over a track of round, rolling stones.

"Don't rush so, Beth," said Jimmy. "I'm out of breath, and there's something I want to say to you."

"If it's anything more about my marrying your uncle," said Beth, "I won't listen to it."

"It's not. It's something more about your marrying me."

They had reached the mouth of the cave. The rehearsal, well started at last, was going on in a serious and orderly way. Old Bunce's boat had reached the pool and was made fast to the rocks. Her cargo was being landed. Mrs. Eames shouted orders from the top of the rock off which she had dived on the day when Sir Evelyn first met her. The superfluous people and all the children were herded together under the charge of Mary Lambert, who prevented their interfering with the performance. Sir Evelyn, perched somewhat perilously beside Mrs. Eames, was looking on with satisfaction. Everybody was too busy and too deeply interested to take any notice of Beth and Jimmy when they came from the depths of the cave.

"Beth," said Jimmy, "I'm quite serious this time."

"So am I," said Beth. "I like you, Jimmy. I've always liked you; but I'm not going to marry a man who—— But I've told you all that a dozen times."

"You have," said Jimmy, "and I quite see your point. I'm a rotter, a footering butterfly, perching on the flowers of life instead of gathering honey like a good, laborious bee. I don't go in for work and all that sort of piffle. That's it, isn't it, Beth? That's what you say."

"Look at Aunt Agatha," said Beth, "married to a man who doesn't do anything, who just sits and moons and dreams."

"Hang it all, Beth, you can't think I'd spend my life shut up in a church if you married me. I'm not that sort at all."

"You'd spend your life playing about with motor-cars and things," she said. "And, Jimmy, dear, can't you see that I couldn't bear to be married to a man who didn't do anything?"

"I quite grasp that," said Jimmy.

"Then why go on worrying me? For it does worry me."

"I'm not going to worry you, Beth. What I want to do is to propose——"

"I won't be proposed to again to-day."

"I'm not going to propose in that sense of the word," said Jimmy. "I'm going to make a proposition. Suppose I go off now and unearth that smuggler's ghost, find out what he's at and why. Would you count that doing something? Something useful? Hang it all, Beth, I think you ought to. The old knights and fellows of that sort who went about killing dragons and giants were looked upon as most valuable members of society and the most conscientious girls were delighted to marry them. If I get rid of a ghost—— You may say what you like, Beth, but a ghost in a small village is a regular pest, much worse than most dragons. If I collar the malignant spirit of that smuggler and stop him throwing stones it'll be something done, won't it? A jolly sight more useful thing really than being chairman of a committee for infant welfare, which is the sort of thing you think I ought to do. If I smother that ghost, Beth, will you marry me?"

"I'll—I'll think about it, Jimmy."