As he spoke the Colonel strode up to the piled-up stones, and looked over into the fern-fringed pit.
“Ugh! horrible! Pitch one of those stones down, boy.”
Gwyn took a piece of the loose granite, raised it over his head with both hands, and threw it from him with force enough to make it strike the opposite side of the shaft, from which it rebounded, and then went on down, down, into the darkness for some moments before there was a dull splash, which came echoing out of the mouth, followed by a strange swishing as the water rose and fell against the sides.
“Horrible, indeed!” muttered the Colonel. Then aloud: “And you let them lower you down by a rope, it came undone, and you fell headlong into that water down below, rose, swam to the side and then crept along a horizontal passage to where it opened out on the sea yonder?”
“Yes, father,” said the boy, recalling his sensations as his father spoke.
“Bless my heart!” exclaimed the Colonel. “Well, Gwyn, you’re a queer sort of boy. Not very clever, and you give me a good deal of anxiety as to how you are going to turn out. But one thing is very evident—with all your faults, you are not a coward.”
“Oh, yes, I am, father,” said Gwyn, shaking his head. “You don’t know what a fright I was in.”
“Fright! Enough to frighten anybody. I’ve faced fire times enough, my boy, and had to gallop helter-skelter with a handful of brave fellows against a thousand or more enemies who were thirsting for our blood! But I dared not have gone down that pit hanging at the end of a rope. No, Gwyn, my boy, you are no coward. There, show me now where you were drawn up.”
Gwyn led the way to the foot of the granite ridge, fully expecting to hear his father say that he could not climb up there; but, to his surprise, the Colonel mounted actively enough, and walked along the rugged top to where it ended in the great buttress, and there he stood at the very edge gazing down.
“Where were you, Gwyn?” he said at last; and the boy pointed out the projection beneath which the adit opened out.