“Door? No,” said Aleck, laughing. “It’s all the natural stone, just chipped a little here and there to make it easier.”
“That’s right,” said the midshipman, sadly. “But it is a terrible place to be shut up in. Hasn’t he been very long?”
“Oh, no. I daresay he’ll be a long time yet. Come, cheer up. Let’s watch the water there. I wish I knew what the time was. Can’t we tell? When the water looks blackest it ought to be high water. I wonder whether we shall see the arch quite cleared and the light shining through. Have you noticed it?”
“Don’t!” said the young sailor, rather piteously. “I know what it means—you are talking like this to keep up my spirits.”
“Well, suppose I am?”
“Don’t try; it only makes me more weak and miserable. You can’t think of the horrors I’ve suffered.”
“But—”
“Yes, I know what you’re going to say—that I ought to have been firmer, and fought against the dread and horror, and mastered the feelings.”
“Something of the sort,” said Aleck.
“Well, I did at first, but I gradually got weaker and weaker, till in the darkness and silence something happened which scared me ten times more than the being here alone.”