“Ahoy!” came again, as if from a distance, and a thrill ran through the girl, bringing with it a glow of courage.
“It is some poor fellow fallen down;” and, placing her basket by the side, she began to descend cautiously, with Grip rushing to meet her, barking now joyously, and uttering whine after whine.
The descent was not difficult, and after the first few steps the feeling of timidity began to wear off, and Celia descended more quickly till, about fifty feet from the top, some distance under where the fringe of ferns hung, and where it had seemed quite dark from above, but was really a pleasant greenish twilight, she found beneath her feet a few loose flat stones, part of a quantity lying before her in the archway that seemed to lead straight on into the quarry.
But here, right at her feet, the dog began to scratch, tossing one thin piece of stone over the others upon which it lay.
Celia looked before her wonderingly, for she had expected to see a fallen man at once, probably some one of the men whom she knew by sight; but, in spite of the dog’s scratching, she could not imagine anything was there, and she was bending forward, gazing into the half choked-up level passage before her, when there came from under her feet the same smothered,—
“Ahoy!”
She started away, clinging to the side for support, and ready in her fear to rush back to the surface.
But the dog’s action brought her to herself, as he began again to bark furiously, and tore at the stones.
“Hush! Quiet, Grip!” she said in an awe-stricken whisper, as she went down on her knees and listened, her heart beating wildly, and a horrible idea, all confused, of some one having been buried alive, making her face turn ashy pale.
“Ahoy! Any one there?” came in the same faint tones.