“I am,” said Mark emphatically.
“You couldn’t be, old fellow. I should be quite ashamed of it, only I couldn’t help it a bit. It was very stupid, but I had got a sort of idea that I had slipped down into a place full of bogeys, and I daren’t let you shout again for fear that it would be telling all those—what’s his names—that made the echoes where I was. Ugh! It was horrid! But the queer part of it is that though I must be in a very awkward place, with water down below, I don’t seem to mind; but I don’t want to get wet. It would be rather awkward if I went down, though; but I don’t think it’s far, and it would be better to fall into water than on to stones. One would come to the surface again directly and get hold of the walls somewhere.”
“But it would be very horrid,” said Mark hoarsely.
“Oh, when you come to think of it,” said Dean coolly, “that’s only fancy. Water’s water, and it’s only because it’s dark that it seems so horrid; for it is only seems, you know, because if the sun were shining right down here we should think nothing of it.”
“’M–m–m–no,” said Mark dubiously. Then speaking more firmly, “Look here, Dean.”
“Can’t; it’s all black,” replied the lad coolly.
“Well, you know what I mean. Can you hold on?”
“Oh, yes; I am standing upright on a big piece of stone that sticks out of the side.”
“Yes. Go on.”
“I am,” said Dean quite calmly. “But wait a minute; I want to see—no, no, I mean find out—how far it is to the water.”