n, as he involuntarily glanced down at the awful depth
beneath him. "It's the cold water, I think. One of my feet has gone
dead, and the other's getting numb. Gwyn! Gwyn! Here, quick! I don't
know what I'm--Quick!--help! I'm going to fall!"

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

GWYN SHOWS HIS METTLE.

Too much horrified for the moment even to speak, Gwyn grasped the sides
of the ladder with spasmodic strength; his eyes dilated, his jaw
dropped, and he clung there completely paralysed. Then his mental
balance came back as suddenly as he had lost it, and feeling once more
the strong, healthy lad he was, it came to him like a flash that it was
impossible that Joe Jollivet, his companion in hundreds of rock-climbing
expeditions--where they had successfully made their way along places
which would have given onlookers what is known as "the creeps,"--could
be in the danger he described, and with a merry laugh, he cried,--

"Get out! Go on, you old humbug, or I'll get a pin out of my waistcoat
and give you the spur."

There was no response.

"Do you hear, old Jolly-wet? I say, you know, this isn't the sort of
place for playing larks. Wait till we're up, and I'll give you such a
warming!"

Then the chill of horror came back, for Joe said in a whisper, whose
tones swept away all possibility of his playing tricks,--

"I'm not larking. I can't stir."

"I tell you you are larking," cried Gwyn, fiercely. "Such nonsense! Go
on up, or I'll drive a pin into you right up to the head."

The cold chill increased now, and Gwyn shuddered, for Joe said
faintly,--

"Do, please; it might give me strength."

The vain hope that it might be all a trick was gone, and Gwyn was face
to face with the horror of their position. He too looked down, and
there was the platform, with the water splashing and glittering in the
sunshine as it struck upon the rock; and he knew that no help could come
from that direction, for Hardock was at the pump in the shaft. He
looked up to the edge of the cliff, but no one was there, for the people
were all gathered about the top of the mine, and were not likely to come
and look over and see their position. If help was to come to the boy
above him, that help must come from where he stood; and, with the
recollection of his own peril when he was being hauled up by the rope,
forcing itself upon him, he began to act with a feeling of desperation
which was ready to rob him of such nerve as he possessed.

A