“Poor fellow!” said Captain Roby; “he’ll be better when we get him out into the open air. See to him, my lads. If he cannot walk you must carry him.”
The men closed round the corporal, while the captain and Dickenson walked back to where a couple of the men, looking sallow and half-scared with their task, stood holding one of the lanterns at the month of the water-chasm.
“Heard anything?” said the captain, in a low tone of voice which sounded as if he dreaded to hear his own words.
“Nothing, sir,” was the reply; “only the water rushing down.”
“It seems to me,”—began the other, and then he paused.
“Yes: what? How does it seem to you?” asked the captain.
“Well, sir, as we stand listening here it sounds as if the hole down there gets choked every now and then with too much water, and then the place fills up more, and goes off again with a rush.”
The captain made no reply, but stood with Dickenson gazing down into the chasm till there was a difference in the sound of its running out, when the latter caught at his companion, gripping his arm excitedly.
“Yes,” he whispered hoarsely; “that’s how it went while I was down there. Oh Roby! can’t we do anything more?”
The captain was silent for some little time, and then he half-dragged his companion to the rough ladder.