Crown and Sceptre Part 13

"What's the matter?"

"We've got the rope; but what are we going to fasten the end to when we go down?" Fred stopped short, and rubbed one ear.

"You hold it while I go down, and I'll hold it while you go down."

"I shouldn't like to try that," said Scarlett. "We're not strong enough."

"Nonsense! Not if we let the rope bite on the edge of the hole?"

"That would not do," said Scarlett, decisively.

"I know, then," cried Fred. "Come along."

"No. Let's go back and get an iron bar to drive down in the earth."

"I've got a better way than that," said Fred. "There's a pole across the opening in that stone wall half-way up the hill. We'll lay that across, and tie the rope to it."

Scarlett nodded acquiescence, and they trotted on to the rough stone wall, built up of loose fragments piled one on the other, the gateway left for the pa.s.sage of cattle being closed by a couple of poles laid across like bars, their ends being slipped in holes left for the purpose.

The straighter of these two was slipped out by Scarlett and shouldered, and they hastened on, attracted by the discovery they had made, but recalling, as they went on, that they had been told before about the existence of this opening by more than one person, though it had slipped from their memory for the time.

"Who's going down first?" said Fred, as they slowly climbed the last hundred yards of the slope.

"I will."

"No; I think I ought to go first."

"Long bent, short bent," said Scarlett, picking a couple of strands of gra.s.s, breaking them off so that one was nearly double the length of the other, and then, after placing two ends level and hiding the others, offering them to his companion to draw one out.

Fred drew the shorter, and Scarlett had the right to go down first--a right which but for the look of the thing he would willingly have surrendered. For as they reached the long, narrow, gra.s.s-grown crack, the strange whispering and plashing sounds which came from below suggested unknown dangers, which were more repellent than the attractions of the mysterious hole.

Fred looked curiously at Scarlett, who noted the look, and tightened himself up, a.s.suming a carelessness he did not feel.

"Doesn't go down quite straight, seemingly," he said.

"All the better. I say, shall I go down first?"

"What for? I won the choice, and I'm going," said Scarlett, sharply, as he took one end of the rope and tied it to the middle of the pole, which proved to be of ample length to go well across the opening.

"Tie it tightly, Scar," cried Fred.

"Never fear. Mind the rope is so that it will uncoil easily. There, run it down, and let's see if it is long enough to get to the bottom."

Fred raised the rings of stiff twisted hemp, and dropped them down out of sight; but it was evident that the rope did not descend very far, the main portion lodging only a little way down; but Fred raised it a yard or two and shook it, with the effect that more fell down and lodged, but only to be shaken loose again and again, showing plainly enough that the hole went down in a sharp slope for a long way, and then that the rope had dropped over a perpendicular part, for as it was drawn up and down it fell heavily now.

"There," said Fred, "that's it. I dare say that reaches the bottom. If it doesn't, you must come up again. Ready?"

"Yes."

And with all the recklessness of boys who never see the reality of danger until it is there, Scarlett stripped off his jerkin and lowered himself down into the crack, hanging with one arm over the pole for a few moments before seizing the rope, twisting his legs round it, and letting himself slide down.

"Keep on calling out what it's like; and as soon as you get down, sing 'Bottom!' and then I'll come too."

Scarlett nodded, and let himself slide slowly, to find, and call up to his companion, that the hole went down at a slope into the darkness, so that he was not swinging by the rope, but supporting himself thereby, as he glided down over the shaley earth of which the hill was composed, but only to come to a sudden stop as he found that the hole zigzagged back in the opposite direction at a similar angle to that by which he had descended.

"Are you right?" cried Fred from above.

"Yes."

"Is it easy?"

"Yes, quite."

"Then I shall come down now."

"No, no," cried Scarlett; "the rope is not strong enough for two."

"Make haste, then. I want to see what there is. Found anything good?"

"No," said Scarlett, as he glided slowly down into the darkness, with his companion's words buzzing in his ears, just as if they were spoken close by, and listening as he descended to the peculiar, trickling, rushing noise of the sc.r.a.ps of disintegrating slate which he dislodged in pa.s.sing, and which fell rapidly before him.

"Keep talking," said Fred from above.

"There's nothing to talk about," cried Scarlett. "I'm only sliding down a slope, and--yes, now I'm hanging clear, and turning round. Hold the rope: it's twisting so."

"I am holding it tight," came back; "but I can't help its turning round.

What's it like now?"

"Just like day beginning to break, and I can see something shining down below."

"Is it the water?"

"Yes, I suppose so. Shall I go down any lower?"

"Yes, of course."

"It isn't water that's shining," said Scarlett, after turning slowly round two or three times, as he descended another twenty feet.

"What is it, then?--gold or silver?"

"It's only a reflection, I suppose; but I can't quite see."

"Aren't you at the bottom yet?" cried Fred, impatiently.

"No."

"Make haste, then."

"Yes, I am at the bottom," cried Scarlett, directly after, as his feet touched firm rock.