Part 14 (1/2)
”Look out, then,” cried Fred. ”Down I come.”
”No, no; wait a moment,” was the reply. ”I want to try and find out what it's like.”
_Whirr, whizz_!
”What's the matter?” cried Fred, as he heard his companion utter a loud, ”Oh!”
”Something rushed by me.”
”What was it?”
”I couldn't see. Ah! there it is again.”
”Hold tight; I'm coming,” cried Fred. ”I dare say it was an owl or a bat. Oh my! doesn't it sc.r.a.pe you?”
Scarlett's response was a sharp e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n and a jerk at the rope.
”Here, what are you doing?” cried Fred.
There was no answer, only a panting noise.
”Don't swing the rope about like that, Scar! Do you hear? I won't come down, if you don't leave off.”
”Hah! that's it,” came from below.
”What's the matter? What are you doing?” cried Fred, who had paused at the bottom of the first slope, holding tightly by the rope, which Scarlett seemed to be trying to jerk out of his hand.
”It's all right now,” panted Scarlett. ”You sent down a lot of slate and earth, and it came on my head.”
”Well, I couldn't help it. Why didn't you stand on one side?”
”I did,” cried Scarlett, ”and stepped back off the edge. Fortunately, I had tight hold of the rope, but slipped down ever so far, and had to climb up again. Come along down, now.”
There was a serious sound and a spice of danger in this little recital, which, added to the darkness into which Fred had plunged, made him descend for the rest of the way slowly and very cautiously down the second slope, and then, as he hung perpendicularly, and felt himself slowly turning round, he kept on asking how much farther it was, till his feet touched his companion's hands, and he stood directly by his side in the faint grey light, which seemed to strike up from below, both clutching the rope tightly in the excitement of the novel position, and trying to pierce the gloom.
”Ugh! What's that?” cried Fred, suddenly, as he kicked against something which made a rattling noise.
”I don't know. Sounds like pieces of wood.”
”Ugh!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Fred again, ”bones! Come away, Scar; it's a skeleton.”
The two boys shrank away in horror, and for some moments neither ventured to speak, while, as they clung together, each could feel his fellow suffering from no little nervous tremor.
”Some one must have slipped down the hole and died here of starvation,”
whispered Scarlett at last. ”You know how dangerous it is.”
”Yes,” said Fred, thoughtfully, and with his shrinking feeling on the increase. ”No,” he exclaimed directly after, ”I don't think it's that.
I know--at least, I should know if I touched it.”