Vince did not reply, but opened the lanthorn, and raised his finger and thumb to his lips to moisten them before snuffing the candle, which was long-wicked, and threatened to gutter down.
“Mind!” cried Mike warningly, as he thought of their former fright.
“Well, I am minding. Didn’t you see that I wouldn’t wet my fingers? There! that’s right.”
He cleverly snuffed the candle, which flashed up brightly directly, and seemed to illumine the boy’s brain more clearly, as well as the glittering roof and sides of the water-worn passage, for he spoke out sharply directly after.
“Look here, Ladle,” he cried, “I don’t believe we can have come wrong.”
“Don’t be obstinate,” replied Mike; “we must have come wrong, or we shouldn’t be here now.”
“I don’t know that.”
“But I do. See what a while we have been climbing back.”
“Yes; because it has all been uphill, and we had so much to think of going that we did not notice how far we went.”
“But we’ve been hours coming back.”