“No ladder. Stripped!” he said, laconically, and on they hurried again.
The water was a thin encroaching line thirty feet back now. Now the rise in the level hid it from sight.
And finally another rise. Stripped.
And on again.
Young Carrington was getting tired. Even peril was losing its spur. He stumbled a little.
Trevanion caught him round the waist, lifting him along with a strong gentleness; looking at him with curiously wondering eyes, but eyes that never lost their look of fealty.
“Why are the ladders gone?” young Carrington asked, and he kept his voice resolutely free from fear.
“Economy,” said Trevanion, briefly. “Wanted to use them somewhere else. We’ll find one after a bit.” Which might or might not be so.
“And if we don’t?” said Hastings, swinging alongside.
“They’ll send the cage to the level above, and your men will be hallooing all over the place for us,” Trevanion told him. He thought with a certain grim humor that Richards would not make any wild exertion to save him. Hastings’ presence was their best hope, if the ladders failed.