He sat staring at the whites of her eyes, which, with her teeth, were the only visible parts of her countenance at that moment, and swayed his body to and fro, as if endeavoring by a mechanical effort to arrive at a philosophical conception of something exceedingly abstruse.

But at the end of each period he turned to Corrie for a translation.
At length both man and boy became aware of the state of things, and Corrie started up crying: "Let's go into the cave at once." "Hold on, boy," cried Bumpus! "not quite so fast (as the monkey said to the barrel-organ w'en it took to playin' Scotch reels).

We must have a council of war; d'ye see?
The black monster Keona may have gone right through the cave and comed out at t'other end of it, in w'ich case it's all up with our chance o' finding 'em to-night.

But if they've gone in to spend the night there, why we've nothing to do but watch at the mouth of it till mornin' an' nab 'em as they comes out." "Yes; but how are we to know whether they're in the cave or not ?" said Corrie, impatiently.
"Ah! that's the puzzler," replied Bumpus, in a meditative way; "but of course, we must look out for puzzlers ahead sometimes w'en we gets into a land storm, d'ye see; just as we looks out ahead for breakers in a storm at sea.

Suppose now that I creeps into the cave and listens for 'em.