ustn't eat all now."

Shock growled, but I paid no heed, and gave him half of what I had in my
hands, and then putting the parcel with the rest right at the end where
the sand did not fall, I sat down and we ate our gritty but welcome
meal.

We tried round the place again and again, using up the candle till the
wick fell over and dropped in the sand; and then first one match and
then another was burned till we were compelled to give up all hope of
escaping by our own efforts.

Refreshed and strengthened by the food, Shock expressed himself ready
for a new trial at digging his way out.

"I can do it," he said. "I'll soon get through."

Soon after he was clinging to me, hot, panting, and trembling in every
limb, after narrowly escaping suffocation, and when I wanted to take up
the task where he had left off, he clung to me more tightly and would
not let me go from his side.

"Yer can't do it," he said hoarsely. "Sand comes down and smothers yer.
Faster yer works, faster it comes. Let Ike bring the shovels."

There was no other chance. I felt that, and sat down beside Shock and
talked and tried to cheer him up; and when I broke down he roused up and
tried to cheer me. Then I talked to him about stories I had read, where
people had been buried alive, and where they were always dug out at
last, and when I was weary he took his turn, showing me that in his
rough way he could talk quickly and in an interesting way about catching
birds and rats. How at times he had caught rats with his hands, and had
been bitten by them.

"But," he added, with a laugh, "I served 'em out for it--I bit them
after I'd skinned and cooked 'em."

"How horrible!" I said.

"Horrible! Why? They'd lived on our fruit and corn till they were fat
as fat, I like rat."

Then we grew tired, and as soon as we ceased talking a curious sensation
of fear came over us. I say us, for more than once I knew that Shock
felt it, by his whispering to me in an awe-stricken tone:

"I never know'd as being in the dark was like this before. It's darker
like, much darker, you know than being in one of the lofts under the
straw."

CHAPTER THIRTY.

HOW WE WERE RESCUED.

It is all confused at times as I try to recall it. Some of our
adventure stands out clear to me, as if it took place only yesterday,
while other parts seem strange and dreamy, and I know now that we both
dozed a great deal in the warm close place like a pair of animals shut
u