“There are steps down cut into the rock, Sep,” he whispered at last hoarsely. “Quite straight down they are, only just notches for the feet,” he went on. “And there’s an iron rail fixed close to the wall at the side of them, like those in locks on a river.”
Sep stooped gingerly, and looked down too.
“Stand back,” said Rees impatiently, “I’m going down.”
But Sep, one of whose qualities was an absolutely unselfish power of self-sacrifice, prevented him.
“Don’t be absurd, Rees,” he said quietly. “I can climb better than you, and it may come to be a climbing matter. Give me the lantern.”
He took it from his companion’s unwilling hand, and began the descent. But when he had gone ten or twelve steps it seemed to Rees that the lantern swung from side to side, and that Sep was going down very slowly.
“Are you all right, old man?” he asked anxiously.
No answer. At that moment the light in the lantern went suddenly out, and there came up to his ears a dull sound like the fall of some heavy body.
“Sep, Sep, are you all right?” again he shouted, in a voice that rang in the hollow space.
Again no answer. The truth flashed upon him. The cavernous abyss below him was full of foul poisonous gases, such as he had often heard of at the bottom of old wells. There was not a moment to lose. Already poor Sep, stupefied by the noxious vapors, might be beyond the reach of help. Fastening the rope they had brought with them to the top of the perpendicular iron railing in such a manner that the knots, wedged in on the top step, kept it firm, he fastened the other end round his waist, and half-climbed, half-slid down into the blackness below.