CHAPTER XII.
AN UNPLEASANT JOURNEY.
MINNIE and her brother stood at the brink of the well, and gazed with straining eyes into its depths.
“Which of us should go down?” said Minnie.
“You need not have asked such a question; you know that you are not strong enough to draw me up; and I doubt,” added Tom, passing his hand along the rope—“I doubt if this is strong enough to bear me.”
Minnie drew one step backwards. “If it should break with me!” she murmured.
“You should have thought of that before,” was Tom’s only reply.
“Tom, at all risks I must go—I could not sleep to-night with this horrible doubt on my mind, and you will not let me call others to help. I trust that the Almighty will take care of me, for my only hope is in Him. Help me to get into the bucket; and, oh! be very careful, dear Tom—you do not know how much frightened I am.”
“Hold the rope firmly,” said her brother; “and here, take this long stick to feel about in the water when you are down.” Tom was extremely anxious to have his own mind relieved, or, heartless as he was, he could hardly have consented to let his young sister run this risk. But there was nothing that the selfish boy dreaded so much as that his share in Johnny’s wanderings should be known, if his fearful suspicion were true, and the poor child had indeed perished through his folly.