hat he could get his hands on the aperture and thus clamber out.
Lowrie was chosen as the messenger to the outer world, and Harry said
to him when shoving him aloft, "Drop us one rope at once, but fix the
other to a boulder and slide down by it. That will give us help in
scrambling out of here."

The rope was soon in their hands, and Yaspard, seizing the end, tied it
round his waist, while Harry instructed him how to strike a light when
lowered, and what signals to make to those above. In breathless
excitement they stood around that gruesome hole, and slowly lowered
their young leader into its dark and gaping jaws. Lower, lower; and
the rope was almost all paid out when a sharp jerk told (as agreed
upon) that Yaspard had reached the bottom.

"Not so deep as I feared," Harry whispered with a sigh of relief.

Then there came a sudden flare of light, which showed that Yaspard was
trying to illumine the scene; but it was extinguished again directly.
Again and again he tried, but evidently in vain. Then came darkness
and silence as before. But after a little time of fearful suspense the
rope was jerked twice, and Yaspard was hauled up again.

"What of Tom?" Harry asked as soon as Yaspard's head appeared in sight;
but Yaspard did not reply until he was standing beside them. Then he
said, "He is lying there senseless, but he is alive."

"Oh, your hands!" Bill screamed, and all eyes turned on Yaspard's
hands, which were red with blood.

"Tom is badly hurt. I put my hands on his face and chest," explained
too surely that horrible sign. "There is no keeping a match or candle
alight down there. The wind is rushing through it as if it were a
funnel," Yaspard went on, "and I can't think how he is to be got out."

"Bill," said Harry, with the imperious decision which he always assumed
in any emergency, where one cool head was worth a score of able
undirected hands, "Bill, you run for your life to the boat again.
Bring the tar-pot and a stick or two, the potato bag, and a towel, and
a can of water; some more rope, if you can find it handy. Gloy, go
with him to help carry; and mind, both of you, Tom's life is possibly
depending on your speed. Don't forget anything. Keep your wits clear."

The two little chaps were off without a moment's delay, scudding across
the Stack, and too engrossed with their errand and its urgency to note
the rising storm, which had set the white horses rampant on the deep
and driven the sea-