“Look at him, Billy! Ain’t it just awful? Come away ’fore we gets let through, and are boiled to rags.”
“Hold yer tongue,” growled Wriggs. “You’ll have the gents hear yer. Ask ’em to let us go back.”
“You’ll have to analyse this water, Panton,” said Lane, as he went on with his washing. “There must be a deal of alkali as well as carbonate of lime in solution.”
“Strikes me, mate, as it won’t have us in slooshum?” whispered Smith. “Don’t ketch me slooshing myself in it.”
The water assumed another shade of blue where Oliver Lane was washing, while Panton chipped off the petrification formed round the basin, and Drew examined some peculiar water-plants which grew just where the hot water issued to form the little stream.
“Be a fortune for anyone if he had it upon his own land in England,” said Panton. “Can you see where the spring rises?”
“Yes, down here in the middle, there’s quite a pipe. This must be similar to what we read about, connected with the geysers?” said Oliver. “Here, you two, don’t be so cowardly. Come and wash. Catch!”
He threw the soap to Wriggs, who caught it, let it slip from his fingers, and it went down into the beautiful blue basin of water with a splash.
“There, fetch it out!”
Accustomed to obey, Billy Wriggs stepped forward, plunged in his hands, caught the soap, and kept his fingers beneath the surface. “Why, it’s lovely, matey!” he cried reproachfully to Smith. “Here, come on.”