“No, I shan’t, Mas’r Harry!” he exclaimed. “There ain’t room for both of us to work at once, and we shall only be tripping one another up. Let me work a spell, and then you can take a turn.”
Tom dug away at a tremendous rate, the wet sand cutting out firmly and easily, and soon the hole grew deep and wide, when, suddenly resting, Tom looked up at me.
“Say, Mas’r Harry,” he said, just as I leaped down into the hole, “go and see if there’s anybody coming.”
“No,” I said, looking at him suspiciously; “go you.”
“Course I will, Mas’r Harry!” he exclaimed. “But say, what a s’picious sort of a fellow you do get.”
Then, jumping out, he took his turn at inspecting the ravine, peering cautiously through the creepers that covered the rocks, while I toiled hard at the spade, throwing up the wet sand.
“Don’t throw no more this side, Mas’r Harry,” said Tom on his return. “Pitch it the other way. It’s been falling into the water and making it thick, so as it will go running down and telling everybody as we’re at work in here.”
Tom’s words made me leap out of the hole.
“Gracious, Tom!” I exclaimed, “what a fool I am!”
“Well, Mas’r Harry,” said Tom bluntly, “I did think as you was just now, over that s’picion o’ yourn; but as to throwing the sand into the water, why, one can’t foresee everything. I don’t think there’s any harm done, though.”