"What be doin', Feyther?" asked Sam.
"Use yer eyes, sonny, and put a name to 't yerself," replied Reuben.
"Well, if I was to speak my thought, I'd say 'ee was makin' a ladder that 'ud let a man down as soon as he put a foot on it."
"Then 'tis for you to make it stronger, my son, babe and sucklin' as 'ee be. T'ud be a sin to let so much cleverness run to seed. Strip off yer coat and lay into it, and keep yer tongue quiet, for if 'ee set all the organs of yer body goin' at once, you'll die young."
This implied rebuke had the effect of making Sam enter zealously into the work, and before supper two light ladders were finished, each six feet long, which, together with a short ladder of the ordinary kind that Reuben used in his duties about the premises, provided Dick with a total length of eighteen or twenty feet. His notion was to carry these separate pieces down to the cave, and then lash them together to form one continuous whole.
He fixed on the following afternoon for his second visit to the cave. The morning turned out very wet, the rain pouring down in quite unusual volume; but the sky cleared after dinner, and the two boys set off, timing themselves as before to reach the cave when the ebbing tide left the entrance free. Again the baby seals were alone, and much as Dick would have liked a tussle with their parents, his sporting bent was for the time subordinate to his wish to find the supposed landward entrance to the cave.
The ladder perfectly answered its purpose, but it was disappointing to find that it was by no means long enough. Even when Dick, the taller of the two, stood on the topmost rung, Sam holding the ladder steady at the bottom, he saw that the walls still stretched for several feet above him. But the roof was now in sight, an irregular arch, consisting of knobs, wedges, and inverted pyramids of rock, and Dick felt the tantalising certainty that the opening, if opening there was, could not be far away.
They went all round the cave, setting the ladder up at frequent intervals, Dick exploring every foot of the jagged wall with the aid of his lantern. There were plenty of recesses and depressions, ranging from a finger's breadth to the length of his arm; but he did not find one where he was unable to touch the back of it with his outstretched hand. It was clear that the opening, if it existed, must be above his head.
"We shall have to make another length of ladder, and come back again," he said to Sam. "I won't give it up."
He was standing high on the ladder as he spoke, dangling the lantern by a ring at the top. The words were scarcely out of his mouth when there was a tremendous crash, which shook the place, and so much startled him that, in an instinctive movement to cling on to something, he let the lantern fall. It lighted fairly on the top of Sam's head, bounced off, and dropped with a thud to the sandy floor, where the candle was instantly extinguished.