There was a pause.
"It's our only chance, sir," said George. "There's no knowing but what it might save the two of us."
That last remark fired my resolution: it was for him as well as for myself that the attempt was to be made. He had certainly saved my life, and by all the laws of justice and honour I owed him a like return, if such a thing were possible.
"All right," I cried; "I'll try it—now, at once!"
With some difficulty we wrenched the piece of splintered plank from the cranny into which one end had been forced by the sea, after which we scrambled up the ledge on which we had passed those awful hours of darkness. Everywhere the rock was wet and slippery from the drenching it had received during the storm. I felt George's foot slide as I clambered up on to his shoulders, and a horrid feeling of faintness seized me, for I was then high enough to have broken my neck if we had fallen. With dogged determination to get as far as I could, I planted my foot on the narrow shelf which my companion had indicated; and receiving the piece of plank which he handed up, I thrust it into the crack some two feet higher up, and almost in what might be called the mouth of the chimney. Fortunately this crevice was just wide enough to admit the wood a sufficient distance to make it secure; another step upwards, and as I made it my head struck sharply against something projecting from the side of the hole. It was evidently an iron bar bent round in a semicircle, with both ends embedded firmly in the rock. The surface was eaten with rust, but pull and tug at it as I would, it showed no signs of giving. Rising carefully to my full height, I found another piece of iron exactly similar to the first some little way above; then suddenly it occurred to my mind that they had been put there to serve as steps, as I had once seen similar irons placed in a new chimney-stack at Castlefield. Hesitating no longer, I mounted from one to another, until I must have climbed a dozen; then feeling with my hand in the darkness, I discovered an open space, evidently the mouth of some subterranean tunnel.
Far beneath me I could just make out the pale shadow of my companion's upturned face as he gazed anxiously into the gloom, wondering, no doubt, what had become of me.
"George! George!" I yelled excitedly, "I've found the entrance of a passage. Come up quick, and see for yourself. I believe we're saved!"