The next minute Mike was bathing his brows, throwing up the water with both hands; and as he felt the refreshing coolness send an invigorating and calming thrill through every nerve, he rose up and stood drying himself and gazing round, wondering whether he was yet awake, or this was part of some strange, wild dream.
Vince did not speak, but stood there watching him, while the boat glided on, as it had all through the night, with unerring regularity; and there before them was the great watery oval they had gone on traversing, dotted with sea-birds, while now, instead of the mighty cliffs around, looking black, overhanging and forbidding, they were beautiful in the extreme, both in the morning light and their deep empurpled shades.
Mike looked and looked up at the highest cliffs on his left, over the rapidly gliding water to his right, where the great ridge was dotted with sea-birds, and away to fore and aft, where the lofty overhanging rocks were repeated.
"I say," cried Mike at last, "am I awake ?" "If you're not, I'm fast asleep," said Vince.
"But how did we get here ?" "I don't know.

Through some narrow passage, I suppose; and then, as soon as we got in, we must have been going on round and round, and round and round, thinking that we were getting out to sea.

I say, no wonder it seemed so far!" "Then it is true," said Mike excitedly.

"I don't know that cave, though." "No, we never saw that before," said Vince, as they were swept by a low archway, and then onward by a broad opening, which, seen from their fresh point of view, looked beautiful but strange.
"Is that--" began Mike, in a dubious, hesitating way.
"Yes, of course.

Look: we don't know it from out here, but there's the seal hole and our fishing place, where we caught the crab.