“Yes.”
“What’s the good? I could hold it right enough with a couple such as you on the end.”
“But I want the rope to be round that, Josh, and for you to lower me down or haul me up as I give signals.”
“Oh yes!” growled Josh; “only we might as well have had a block and fall.”
“If we had brought a block and fall up, Josh, it would have been like telling all Peter Churchtown what we were going to do; and you’re the only man I want to know anything about it till I’ve found the copper lode.”
“Ho!” ejaculated Josh, rubbing his nose meditatively with the line. “How much is there here—five-and-thirty fathom?”
“Thirty,” said Will, smiling, as his companion passed the cord through his hands with the skilful ease of a seaman. “Will it bear me?”
“Two of you,” said Josh gruffly.
“Well, I’m going to trust you to take care of me, Josh,” said Will, taking a box of matches from his pocket, and lighting a piece of candle, which he stuck upon one of those little points known as a save-all, and then, bending down, he thrust it into a square niche about a foot below the surface of the mine-shaft—one of several carefully chiselled-out holes evidently intended for the woodwork of a platform.
“Oh! I’ll take care of you.”