CHAPTER FIVE.
WHILE THE RAVEN CROAKED.
It was getting well on in the afternoon, but they had hours of daylight before them for their task.

To reach the spot would have been a trifle if they had possessed the wings of the grey gull which floated softly overhead as if watching them.

A few minutes would have sufficed; for, as the boys had often laughingly said when at home in the centre of the island, where Sir Francis Ladelle's sheltered manor-house stood, near the Doctor's long granite cottage among the scattered dwellings of the fisher-farmers of the place, they could not have walked two miles in any direction without tumbling into the sea.

But to reach the mighty cliffs overhanging the Scraw was not an easy task.
The way they chose was along the eastern side of the island, close to the sea, where from north point to south point the place was inaccessible, there being only three places practicable for a landing, and these lying on the west and south.

There the mighty storm-waves had battered the granite crags for centuries, undermining them in soft veins till huge masses had fallen again and again, making openings which had been enlarged till there was one long cove; the fissure where they had taken boat with old Daygo; and another spot farther to the south.
The lads had not gone far before they curved suddenly to their left, and struggled through one of the patches of woodland that beautified the island.