“Done, eh?” was the reply. “Well, I’m afraid if I had been alone and found this out, I should have lain down, let myself slide to the bottom, and then set to and howled; but the old saying goes, ‘Two’s company, even if you’re going to be hanged,’ and you’re pretty good company, so let’s go back to the cave. We can breathe there. The heat here is awful. This shows that it doesn’t do to be too cocksure of anything. Come on down.”
“But we must have a thoroughly good try to move the stones,” said Aleck, angrily.
“Not a bit of use. That brute has wedged them in and jumped upon them. Why, we may push and heave till we’re black in the face and do no good. We’re fixed up safe.”
“And you’re going to give up like that?”
“Not I,” said the midshipman, calmly. “Show me what I can do, and if it’s likely to be any good I’ll work as long as you like; but it’s of no use to make ourselves more miserable than we are. Come on down.”
The young sailor spoke in so commanding a tone that Aleck yielded, and, following his comrade’s example, he slid down slope after slope, and finally stood in the great open cavern, breathing in long deep breaths of the fresh soft air.
“Hah! That’s better,” said the midshipman. “I felt stifled up in that hole. Now I don’t bear malice against anybody, but I think I should like to see that smuggling ruffian shut up here for a few days. Look here, Aleck; all he said was pretence—he never meant us to get out again.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Aleck, passionately. “He might, or he might not. Now, then, what’s to be done—try and find some tools, and then get to work to chip those stones to pieces?”
“No, it would only mean try and try in vain.”
“Here, what has come to you?” cried Aleck. “You take it all as coolly as if it were of no consequence at all. I don’t believe you can understand yet how bad it all is.”