“Yes, sir.”
“Splendid news, my dear boy. There, I forgive you for being long,” he added good-humouredly. “The horses want a drink badly. Show the men where to lead them at once.”
“My news is not so good as that, sir. It’s hard to get.”
“What! At the bottom of a well?”
“Of a well-like place; and I think there’s an ample supply.”
“See to getting ropes, Sergeant,” said the Colonel, “and—we have no buckets with us?”
“No, sir; but there’s a couple of those zinc-lined nose-bags in the troop.”
“Capital. They’ll do. Take what men you want, and set to work drawing water at once. You must try and clear out some hollow among the stones near the mouth of the well, so that the horses can be led to drink as fast as the men can haul the water up.”
I was in the party told off to help; and the first thing to be done was to find the nearest part of the court to the interior building where the mine-shaft was. It proved to be an easier task than we anticipated. What was better, we came upon a pile of stones in one corner, close up to the wall, which looked as if they had been heaped up there by hand for some reason or another; and they attracted me so that I drew Denham’s attention to them, and told him what I thought.
“You’re right,” he said. “Here, half-a-dozen of you, come and help.”