“If you please, sir,” one of the coast-guard men said, touching his hat, “I don’t see any signs of our officer.  Have you seen him?”

“No,” Ralph said.  “Perhaps he is still in that passage.  You had better run up to the top and see.”

Two minutes later the man returned: 

“He’s down there, sir; but he says he can’t get up or down.”

“You had better run down to the boat at once,” Ralph said.  “I see she is close inshore.  Bring a couple more of your men up with you and a rope.  If you tie that round your body you can go down and bring him up.”

Ralph then returned to the cavern, where the men were still guarding the prisoners.

“You can march them outside now,” he said.  “Then make them sit down, and stand over them with fixed bayonets till Sergeant Morris arrives.  Now let us look to the wounded.”

An examination showed that two of the soldiers were dead, and three others badly wounded.  Seven of the party in the cave lay on the ground.  One only was alive; the rest had fallen either from bullet or bayonet wounds.  Seeing that nothing could be done here Ralph looked round the cavern.  He soon saw that just where Captain O’Connor had fallen there was an entrance into another cave.  He reloaded his pistols before he entered this, but found it deserted.

It contained two large stills, with mash tubs and every appliance, two or three hundred kegs of whisky, and some thirty sacks of barley.  This at once accounted for the cave being known, and for the number of men found in it; for in addition to the seven that had fallen six prisoners had been taken.  The walls of the cave were deeply smoke-stained, showing that it had been used as a distillery for a great number of years.

“That is satisfactory,” Captain O’Connor said when Ralph reported to him the discovery he had made.  “That place where I came down is of course the chimney.  Peat does not give much smoke, and making its way out through that screen of bushes it would be so light that it would not be noticed by any one on the cliffs.  Well, it’s been a good morning’s work—­a band of notorious scoundrels captured and an illicit still discovered in full work.  It was a cleverly contrived place.  Of course it is a natural cavern, and was likely enough known before the fall of rocks from above so completely concealed the entrance.  I wish those fellows would come, though, for my leg is hurting me amazingly, and these burns on my hands and face are smarting horribly.  Shout out to them on the cliff, Conway, and tell them to send at once to fetch Dr. Doran from the village.  The wounded ought to be seen to as soon as possible, and it is likely enough that some of them cannot be taken up over the rocks to the top of the cliff.  I dread the business myself.”

In a quarter of an hour Sergeant Morris arrived with his party.  By this time Lieutenant Desmond had recovered consciousness, and although in great pain from his broken arm was consoled upon hearing of the complete success of the expedition.  The soldiers were furious on hearing that three of their comrades had been killed, and two of their officers badly injured.