"

"Why?"

"Because you were getting better, and now you are trying to make
yourself worse."

"Oh no, I'm not; and you are not going. Talking to you about it acts
like a safety-valve, too. There, it's of no use for you to try and stop
me, Bob, for if you go I shall think all the more. I've been wanting to
tell you all about it for days."

"But the doctor said I was not to encourage you to talk about the
horror."

"Well, you are not encouraging me; you are flopping on me like a wet
blanket. I say, it was horrible, wasn't it?"

"No," said Dickenson angrily; "but this is."

Lennox was silent for a few minutes, and he lay so quiet that Dickenson
leaned forward to gaze at him earnestly, "All right, Bob. I'm here, and
getting awfully strong compared with what I was a week ago. I shall get
up and come out to-morrow."

"You won't. You're too weak yet."

"Oh no, I'm not. I shall be on duty in two or three days, and as soon
as I'm well enough I want you and the sergeant to come with me to have
another exploration with lanterns and a rope."

"There, I knew it. You're going off your head again."

"Not a bit of it."

"Then why can't you leave the wretched cave alone?"

"Because it interests me. I mean to go down again at the end of the
rope."

"Bah! You're mad as a hatter. I knew you'd bring it on."

"There, it's of no use. I want to tell you all about it."

"If you think I'm going to stop here and listen to a long rigmarole
about that dreadful hole, you're mistaken; so hold your tongue."

"There's no long rigmarole, Bob. You know how the corporal yelled out
and clutched at me."

"No; I only guessed at something of the kind," replied Dickenson
unwillingly. "We could not see much."

"Well, in his horror at finding himself lifted he completely upset me.
It was all in a moment: I felt myself gliding over the slimy stone, and
then I was plunged into deep water and drawn right down."

"But you struck out and tried to rise?" said Dickenson, overcome now by
his natural eagerness to know how his comrade escaped.

"Struck out--tried to rise!" cried Lennox, with a bitter laugh. "I have
some recollection of struggling in black strangling darkness for what
seemed an age, the water thundering the while in my ears, before all was
blank."

"But you were horror-stricken, and felt that you must go on fighting for
your life?"

"No," said Lennox quietly. "I felt nothing till the darkness suddenly
turned