“Yes, sir; let it go, and I’ll carry it up.”
Roy quitted his hold of the keg unwillingly, and his heart beat violently as he listened to the soft pat, pat, of his companion’s feet, and thought of the consequences of a fall. Possibly one vivid flash and the whole place destroyed; and yet for years they had all been living so close to this terribly destructive power.
“If Ben should drop that keg!”
But Ben only set it down quietly a short distance from the top of the steps and descended.
“T’other one, sir, please,” he said; and Roy placed this in the man’s hands with the same shrinking feeling of reluctance.
It was carried up, and Roy stepped out, drawing the door after him, and after a few trials managing to close the two bars which secured the place.
“Don’t want no help there, sir?”
“No; I have done it,” was the reply; and Roy ascended the steps and waited for his companion to close the stone trap.
“Not a bad hole this to shut any one up in if we ever wanted to get rid of him, eh? He’d have to shout pretty hard to make any one hear.”
“Don’t talk; let’s get away from the dreadful place,” said Roy, whose face was wet with perspiration. “Can you carry both kegs?”