“It’s all nonsense; you want to give up over climbing a ladder such as we could run up. ’Tisn’t like being on the rocks with nothing to hold on by, now, is it? Let’s see; we’re half of the way up, and we can soon do it, so say when you feel ready, and then up you go!”
But after a guess at the space of time named, Joe showed no inclination to say he was ready, and stood there, pressed against the ladder, breathing very feebly, and Gwyn began to be attacked once more by the chill of dread.
He fought it back in his desperation, and in a tone which surprised himself, he cried,—
“Now, then! Time’s up! Go on!”
To his intense delight, his energy seemed to be communicated to his companion; and as he hung back a little, Joe reached with one hand, got a fresh hold there with the other, and, raising his right foot, drew himself slowly and cautiously up, to stand on the next spell.
“Cheerily ho!” sang out Gwyn, as he followed. “I knew, I knew you could do it. Now then! Don’t stop to get cold. Up you go before I get out that pin.”
Joe slowly and laboriously began again, and reached the next step, but Gwyn felt no increase of hope, for he could tell how feeble and nerveless the boy was. But he went on talking lightly, as he followed and let the poor fellow feel the support of his breast.
“That’s your sort. Nine inches higher. Two nine inches more—a foot and a half. But, I say, no games; don’t start off with a run and leave me behind. You’d better let me go with you, in case your foot gives—gives way again.”
That repetition of the word gives was caused by a peculiar catching of Gwyn’s breath.
“I say,” he continued, as they paused, “this is ever so much better than going up those wet ladders in the shaft. I shall never like that way. Don’t you remember looking down the shaft of that mine, where the hot, steamy mist came up, and the rounds of the ladder were all slippery with the grease that dropped from the men’s candles stuck in their caps? I do. I said it would be like going down ladders of ice, and that you’d never catch me on them. Our way won’t be hot and steamy like that was, because there’ll always be a draught of fresh sea air running up from the adit. Now then, up you go again! I begin to want my dinner.”