“You can? Well, I’ll come and have a look presently. Here goes for a wade.”
Vince gave the bottoms of his trousers an extra roll, so as to get them as high as possible above his knees, and leaning forward from where he stood upon a detached block of stone, he rested his hands upon the side of the great buttress, and lowered one foot into the water over ankle, calf, and knee; and then he uttered a cry, and nearly went headlong, but making a violent effort, he wrenched himself back, thrusting the rock with all his might, and came down in a sitting position upon the great stone.
Chapter Twelve.
Lost in the Darkness.
“What was it?” cried Mike excitedly: “something get hold of your leg?”
“No,” replied the boy, with a shiver, as his face turned clayey-looking. “Yes.”
“What was it—crab or a conger?”
“Something ever so much worse,” said Vince, with a shiver. “It looks quite hard down there, and all as tempting as can be; but it’s loose quicksand, and my foot went down into it just as if it was so much sticky oil. There’s no getting along there.”