“I? Oh no!”
“All right, you shall go down after. Now, mind, you’ve got to keep your foot on the grapnel here, so as it can’t come out.”
“But you surely will not go down, and trust to that?”
“Trust to that, and to you, my lad. So, mind, if you let the anchor fluke come out, down I shall go to the bottom; and I don’t envy you the job of going to tell The Mackhai.”
“Oh, Kenneth!”
“Fact I’m the only boy he has got.”
“It is horrible!” panted Max, as Scoodrach advanced to the edge of the cliff and threw over the coil of rope, standing watching it as it uncurled rapidly ring by ring, till it hung taut.
Max saw it all in imagination, and the fine dew stood out upon his face as he pressed his foot with all his might down upon the anchor, and listened to and gazed at what followed.
“There she is,” said Scoodrach. “Will ye gang first, Maister Ken, or shall I?”
“Oh, I’ll go first, Scood. But how about the young birds? what shall I put them in?”