Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
HE DRAGGED INTO THE LIGHT A BULKY BAG.
THE WIZARD'S CAVE
By
EGLANTON THORNE
R.T.S., 4, Bouverie Street, London, E.C.4.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS
CHAPTER II. FIRST SIGHT OF THE SEA
CHAPTER III. THE WRECKERS' LAMP
CHAPTER IV. EXPLORING THE CAVE
CHAPTER V. EXPLORING THE OLD HOUSE
CHAPTER VI. AN AMAZING DISCOVERY
CHAPTER VIII. THE MYSTERY OF THE CAVE
CHAPTER X. NOEL GUARDS THE SECRET
CHAPTER XI. NO COWARD AFTER ALL
THE WIZARD'S CAVE
CHAPTER I.
THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS.
THE coach rolled away from the door of Tudor Hall. The largeschoolroom, tenanted only by two small boys crouching close to one ofthe windows, looked bare and grim.
It was raining so fast that they could not go into the playground.The dusty roads and scorched gardens of the London suburb needed rainbadly, but what cared the boys for that? The downpour swelled the senseof wrong which filled the bosom of the elder, Marmaduke (generallyknown as Duke) Bryden, a well-grown boy of twelve, for this was"breaking-up day," and these boys had seen their schoolmates departgleefully for home while they, having no home, were to spend theirholidays at the schoolhouse.
"It's a horrid shame," ejaculated Duke Bryden, not for the firsttime—"a horrid shame! That's just what it is, and I don't care whohears me say it!"
As there was no one save themselves in the large room, the boast seemedunnecessary.
"It's not any good to say it," replied Noel, his brother, a slight,fair boy about eighteen months younger. "It does not alter it; we'vegone through it before, and we know what it's like. Mrs. Tapson isn'thalf bad when we're the only boys she has to look after. Do youremember when we went to the sea?"
"Of course I remember it," Duke said. He had indeed a far clearerrecollection than Noel of the summer when their parents took them toDeal, yet it was the younger boy who loved to brood over the vague,sweet memory of joyous days.
Since then, through their father's untimely death, the boys' lives hadwholly changed. Their home was broken up and their mother obliged totake a situation. A friend offered to pay for the boys' education. Hewas a well-to-do man and kindly disposed towards the little fellows,but he had a large family of his own, and his wife could not betroubled with strange boys in the holidays.
The brothers had ceased to talk, and were moodily watching the steadydownfall of t