ion seeming to be luminous: suppose the rope should break!

It is wonderful how much thought will compress itself into a minute. It
was so here, these ideas repeating themselves again and again before the
young man's feet touched something soft and yielding, and upon his
stretching his legs wide he felt slippery rock.

"Hold on!" he shouted, and there was what sounded like a mocking chorus
of "On--on--on--on!" beginning loudly and distinctly, and going right
away into a faint whisper.

Turning himself a little on one side, Lennox bent outward so that the
light of the lantern flashed from a narrow stream of water which, from
the bubbles and foam, he could see was rushing towards him, to pass down
under the ledge of rock upon which one foot rested; but now he was able
to see what he wanted, and that was the missing corporal hanging face
upward, but with head and neck over the edge of a block of stone which
had checked his rapid slide down into the gulf, while the next moment
the light showed that the poor fellow's legs were also hanging downward,
the ledge being exceedingly narrow.

"Well?" cried Captain Roby. "Found him?"

"Yes, sir. Seems to be quite insensible. I can get my arms round him
and hold him if you can haul us up. Will the rope bear us both?"

"No!" came in a roar from up above, every man, in his excitement,
negativing the proposal.

"Silence, men!" cried the captain angrily. Then he shouted down, "It
would be too risky. Here, I'll have the rope slackened, and you can
untie it and make it fast round May's chest. I'll have him hauled up,
and send the rope down again for you.--Slacken away, my lads."

The pressure on the rope ceased for a moment as it was slackened, and
then it tightened with a jerk, and there was a loud, echoing splash as
Lennox was plunged into rushing water to the waist, the sensation being
as if he had been suddenly seized and was being dragged under into some
great hole.

"Hold hard!" he roared, and the echoes seized upon the last
word--"Hard--hard--hard!"--running right away again till it was a
whisper.

"Why, what are you about?" cried Roby.

"Trying to save the light," panted Lennox. "There is no room to stand
on the ledge with the poor fellow. Haul up a little more. My face is
on a level with him now. Haul! haul! The water seems to suck me down.
Ha!" he gasped; "that's better," and he wrenched himself round, catching
at a piece of slippery rock that was agains