Menhardoc Part 9

The rope slipped slowly through his hands, checked as it was by the twist round his right leg, and he dropped lower and lower, turning gently round the while.

"Now, then! Where?" he shouted again.

"Here!" was the answer from close below now; and Josh took one look upwards, to see that the square mouth of the shaft seemed very small.

"I'm 'bout with you now, my lad," he said as he still glided down.

"Now, where are you?"

"Here!" came from below him: and he tightened his grasp, while the rope slowly turned till his face was opposite to the mouth of the shaft.

"Right, lad!" he cried, striking his feet against the side of the shaft.

"I can't see very well," he added as he swung to and fro more and more, "but I'm 'bout doing it, ain't I?"

"Yes--I think so," faltered Will. "Take care."

"Sha'n't let go o' the rope, lad," said Josh, striking his feet again on the shaft-wall, and giving himself such impetus that they rested, as he swung across, on the floor of the gallery, into which he was projected a foot; but the rope, of course, caught on the roof of the place, and he was jerked back and swept over to the opposite wall.

The next time he approached the gallery backwards, and his feet barely touched; but he swung round again, gave himself a fresh impetus, shot himself forward, and as he entered the opening he let the rope slide through his hands for a few feet, the result being that when he tightened his grasp he was landed safely, and he drew a long breath.

"Where are you?" he said sharply as he drew up more of the rope; and, making a running loop, pa.s.sed it over his head and round his waist, so as there should be no danger of its getting free.

"Here!" cried Will, whose nerve seemed to return now that he had a companion in his perilous position; and, starting up, he caught the rough fisherman tightly by the arm.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

"I SAY, MY LAD, WHAT'S GOING TO BE DONE?"

"Why, what's the matter with you?" cried Josh angrily.

"I don't know. Nothing," replied Will. "I could not reach the rope."

"Ah! well, you've got it now," said Josh gruffly; "and the sooner we get out of this the better."

"Get out of it?" said Will hoa.r.s.ely.

"Get out of it! To be sure. You didn't mean to come here to live, did you?"

"No," said Will, "but--"

He paused, for his nervous feeling was returning, and shame kept him from saying that he was afraid.

He might have spoken out frankly, though, for Josh Helston, blunt of perception as he was over many things, saw through him now, and in a gruff voice he said:

"Well, if anybody had told me that you could have got yourself skeered like this, Master Will, I should have told him he was a fool. But there, you couldn't help it, I s'pose. It was that diving as upset you, lad."

"Yes, yes; perhaps it was," cried Will, eagerly grasping at the excuse.

"I'm not myself, Josh, just now."

Josh began to whistle a dreary old minor tune as they stood there in the dark, to the accompaniment of the dripping water, and for some few minutes no word was spoken.

"Hadn't we better get back?" said Josh at last.

"But how?" said Will despairingly.

"Rope," replied Josh laconically. "Swarm up!"

Will laid his hand upon the slight cord his companion had knotted round his waist.

"I could not climb up that," he said, "at any time. It's impossible now."

Josh whistled again and remained silent.

"Well, it is gashly thin to swarm up," he said. "I never thought of that till now."

"You did not think of getting back?" cried Will.

Josh rubbed the side of his nose with a bit of the rope.

"Well, no," he said slowly; "can't say as I did, lad. Seemed to me as you was in trouble, and I'd better come to you, and so I come."

"Josh!" cried the lad.

"Yes, my son. Well, what's going to be done? We can't stop down here.

We shall be wanted aboard, and there ain't a bit o' anything to eat."

"Do you think when we are missed that they will come and look for us?"

"Well," said Josh slowly, "they might or they mightn't; but if they did they wouldn't find us."

"I don't know," said Will thoughtfully.

"Well, I think I do, lad," said Josh, after another scrub at his nose.

"I don't s'pose anybody in Peter Churchtown knows that this gashly old hole is here, and it ain't likely they'd come up here to look for us."

"But they would hunt for us surely, Josh."

"Dunno. When they missed us they'd say we'd took a boat and gone out somewheres to fish, and happened on something--upset or took out to sea by the current."

"Yes," said Will thoughtfully.

"Seems to me, lad, as it's something like a lobster-pot--easy enough to get in, and no way out."

"Shall we shout for help?"

"You can if you like," said Josh quietly. "I sha'n't. It makes your throat sore, and don't do no good."

"Don't be cross with me, Josh," cried Will excitedly.