CHAPTER THREE.
A GUNPOWDER PLOT.
We three boys sat down at the edge of the steepest side of the crags after this to rest, and think what we should do next, and to help our plans we amused ourselves by pitching pieces of loose stone down as far as we could.
Then the rope was dragged over the Beacon rock and coiled up, while I tugged and wriggled the iron bar to and fro till I could get it free.
"Let's go down to the shore now, and see if we can find some crabs," I said.

"The tide's getting very low." "What's the good ?" said Bob picking up the iron bar, and chipping this stone and loosening that.

"I say, why don't some of those stones rock?
They ought to." He began to wander aimlessly about for a few minutes, and then, finding a piece that must have been about a hundredweight, he began to prise it about using the iron bar as a lever, and to such good effect that he soon had it close to the edge.
"Look here, lads," he cried, "here's a game! I'm going to send this rolling down." We joined him directly, for there seemed to be a prospect of some amusement in seeing the heavy rugged mass go rolling down here, making a leap down the perpendicular parts there, and coming to an anchor somewhere many hundred feet below where we were perched.
For there was not even a sheep in sight, the side of the valley below us being a rugged mass of desolation, only redeemed by patches of whortleberry and purple heath with the taller growing heather.
"Over with it, Bob," cried Bigley; "shall I help ?" "No, no, you needn't help neither," said Bob.

"I'm going to do it all myself scientifically, as Doctor Stacey calls it.

This bar's a fulcrum." "No, no," I said; "that isn't right." "Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Bigley.
"Then what is it, please, Mr Clever?
Doctor Stacey said bars were fulcrums, and you put the end under a big stone, and then put a little one down for a lever--just so, and then you pressed down the end of the bar--so, and then--" "Oh! Look at it," cried Bigley.
For Bob had been suiting the action to the word, and before he realised what he was doing the effect of the lever was to lift the side of the big stone, so that it remained poised for a few moments and then fell over, gliding slowly for a few feet, and then gathering velocity it made a leap right into a heap of _debris_ which it scattered, and then another leap and another, followed by roll, rush, and rumble, till, always gathering velocity, amidst the rush and rattle of stones, it made one final bound of a couple of hundred feet at least, and fell far below us on a projecting mass of rock, to be shivered to atoms, while the sound came echoing up, and then seemed to run away down the valley and out to sea.
No one spoke for a few moments, for the feeling upon us was one of awe.
"I say, that was fine!" cried Bob at last.