“You do not mind being left alone?”
“No—if you will not be long.”
“I will run,” he said—and run he did, for she had scarcely begun to feel the loneliness when he returned panting.
He took the end she had been holding, tied on the fresh cord he had brought, and again lowered away. As he was beginning to fear that after all he had not brought enough, the weight stopped, resting, and drew no more.
“If only we had eyes in that weight,” said Arctura, “like the snails at the end of their horns!”
“We might have greased the bottom of the weight,” said Donal, “as they do the lead when they want to know what kind of bottom there is to the sea: it might have brought up ashes. If it will not go any farther, I will mark the string at the mouth, and draw it up.”
He moved the weight up and down a little; it rested still, and he drew it up.
“Now we must mark off it the height of the chimney above the parapet wall,” he said; “and then I will lower the weight towards the court below, until this last knot comes to the wall: the weight will then show us on the outside how far down the house it went inside.—Ah, I thought so!” he went on, looking over after the weight; “—only to the first floor, or thereabouts!—No, I think it is lower!—But anyhow, my lady, as you can see, the place with which the chimney, if chimney it be, communicates, must be somewhere about the middle of the house, and perhaps is on the first floor; we can’t judge very well looking down from here, and against a spot where are no windows. Can you imagine what place it might be?”
“I cannot,” answered Arctura; “but I could go into every room on that floor without anyone seeing me.”
“Then I will let the weight down the chimney again, and leave it for you to see, if you can, below. If you find it, we must do something else.”