Cormorant Crag Part 18

"Yes, yes; but Vince, old chap, tell me how I am to help you."

"I can't: I don't know. I think I can climb out, only I hardly like to stir for fear of a slip. Here goes, though. I can't stay like this."

Mike stood gazing down at the bushes, trembling with anxiety as he heard a rustling and sc.r.a.ping sound beneath, which made him long to speak and ask questions about how his companion got on, but he feared to do so lest he should take his attention from the work he had on hand. Then came the rattle of a falling stone going slowly down, as if there were a good, steady slope; and the boy listened for its plunge into water far beneath, but the falling of the stone ceased to be heard, while the rustling and sc.r.a.ping sound made by the climber increased. Then all at once the bushes began to move and a hand appeared at the far end.

"Take care! pray take care!" cried Mike. "Don't--pray don't slip back!"

"Oh, it's all right now," said Vince, to the watcher's great relief.

"It's all of a slope here, as if it had once been a place where water ran down. Wait a moment till I get out my knife."

There was a pause, during which Mike climbed round to the end where Vince was trying to get out; and he was there by the time his companion began hacking at the brambles with his big knife, first his arm appearing and soon after his head, as he chopped away, getting himself free, and seizing the hand extended to him from where Mike knelt and reached down.

"Hah!" cried Vince, as he climbed on to one of the rugged blocks, "that wasn't nice. It slopes down from here, so that where I fell through I must have dropped a dozen feet; but I came down standing, and then fell this way on my hands and stopped myself from sliding, when a lot of stones that had been waiting for a touch went down."

"But are you hurt?" cried Mike anxiously.

"Not much: bit bruised, I suppose. But I say, isn't it rum? There must have been water running to make a place like that. It must have come all along the bottom, where we've been creeping, and run down here, eating its way, like your father and mine were talking about one evening."

"I'd forgotten," said Mike. "But if it ran down there, where did it go to?"

"Down to the sea, of course, and--I say, Mike, don't you see?" cried Vince excitedly.

"See? See what?" said the lad, staring.

"What I said."

"How could any one see what you said!" cried Mike, ready enough to laugh now that his companion was out of danger.

"Oh, don't be stupid at a time like this!" grumbled Vince excitedly.

"Once water begins to eat away, it goes on eating a channel for itself, like it does at the waterfall over the other side of the island. Well, this must have cut itself a way along. It's quite a big, sloping pa.s.sage, and it must go down to the sh.o.r.e. Can't you see now?"

"I don't know. Do you mean that hole leads down to the sh.o.r.e?"

"Yes, or into some cavern like the great holes where the stream runs out into the sea."

"Then it would be a way down into the Black Scraw?" cried Mike excitedly.

"Of course it would. Why, Mikey, we've found out what we were looking for!"

"You mean you tumbled upon it," said Mike, laughing.

"Tumbled into it," cried Vince, whose face was flushed with eagerness.

"Come on down, and let's have a look if I'm not right."

"What, down there?"

"Yes, of course."

"But isn't it dark?"

"Black enough lower down; but you can see the top part, because the light shines through all these brambles and thorns."

"But hadn't we better wait till I've got a lanthorn and the rope?"

"Why, of course, before we try to explore it; but we might go and look a little way. You're not afraid?"

"No, I don't think I'm afraid," said Mike.

"Then come on."

Without a moment's hesitation Vince began to lower himself down where he had so lately emerged, and Mike followed; but in a few minutes they had decided that they could do nothing without a light. All they could make out was that there was a rugged slope, very steep and winding, going right away in the direction of the sea. They picked up the loose stones beneath their feet, and threw them into the darkness, and listened to hear them go bounding down, striking the sides and floor; but there seemed to be no precipitous fall, and at last, thoroughly satisfied with their discovery, they climbed back into daylight, and sat down on the stones to rest and think.

"I've got it!" said Mike suddenly. "It isn't what you think."

"What is it, then?"

"An old mine, where they bored for lead in the old, old days."

"No," said Vince stubbornly, "it's what I say--the channel of an old stream; and you'll see."

"So will you, my lad, when we bring a lanthorn. I say you'll find the walls sparkling with what-you-may-call-it--you know--that glittering lead ore, same as we've got specimens of in the cabinet at home."

"No," said Vince; "you'll find that it'll be all smooth, worn granite at the sides, where the water has been running for hundreds of years."

"Till it all ran away. Very well, then: let's go back at once and get a lanthorn and the rope."

Vince laughed. "We've got to get home first, and by the time we've done that we shan't want to make another journey to-day; but I say to-morrow afternoon, directly after dinner. Are you willing?"

"Of course."

"And you'll bring the rope?"

"To be sure; and you the crowbar and hammer?"

Vince promised, and sat there very thoughtful, as he gazed down at the hacked-away brambles.

"Let's put these away or throw them down," he said.

"Why?"

"Because if Old Daygo came along here, he'd see that some one had found a way down into the Scraw."

"Daygo! What nonsense! I don't believe he ever was along here in his life."

"Perhaps not; but he may come now, if he sees us spying about. I'm sure he watches us."

"And I'm sure you've got a lot of nonsense in your nut about the old chap. Now then, shall we go?"

"Yes; I'm willing. Think we can find it again?"