“Why,” he cried, “you’re never so much more clever than me. Why didn’t you think o’ this here?”
“What? What are you going to do, Josh?”
“Do, lad!” he cried, suiting the action to the word by running the rope through his hands sailor-fashion till he got hold of the end; “why, I’m going to make a knot every half fathom as nigh as I can guess it, and then it’ll be easy enough to climb up or down.”
Will breathed more freely, and stood listening to his companion’s work, for it was a task for only one.
“There you are,” cried Josh at the end of a few minutes’ knotting. “Now, then, who’ll go down first—you or me?”
“I will,” said Will. “I’m better now.”
“Glad to hear it, lad; but you ain’t going first into that gashly hole while I’m here. Stand aside.”
Catching hold of the rope again he gradually tightened it to feel whether it was all right and had not left its place over the iron bar; and then, swinging himself off, he descended quickly about fifty feet till Will could hear his feet splash into the water, and then he shouted:
“Hooray, lad!”
“Is there an adit, Josh?”