There they were in the deep water, which glided along at the foot of a blank, carefully smoothed-away wall of rock, perfectly perpendicular, and, save where it was dotted here and there with mossy growth, offering not the slightest foot- or hand-hold.
“Why, it must be fully fifty feet high to that carved coping-like projection,” said Brace.
“Yes, about that,” said Briscoe, with a sigh of disappointment. “Here, I’d give a hundred dollars for the loan of a ladder that we could plant down here in the water and would reach to the top.”
“It would take a long one,” said Brace, laughing. “I wonder how deep it is.”
“Ah, let’s try,” said Briscoe. “Here, hand one of those fishing-lines and a lead out of the locker, Lynton.”
This was well within the second mate’s province, and the next minute he had the heaviest lead at the end of a line, dropped it over the side, and let it run down as fast as he could unwind.
“I say: it’s deep,” he said, as the line ran over the boat’s gunwale; and he said so again and again, till the winder was empty and the lead not yet at the bottom.
“How long is that line?” said Brace, in astonishment.
“One hundred yards, gentlemen,” said Lynton loudly. “Shall I have it wound up again?”
“Yes,” said Sir Humphrey. “We must try and find bottom some other time. The river must be of a terrific depth.”