hour of painful waiting before Josh's voice
was heard from above.

Will had been sitting there in the dark passage listening to every
noise, though scarcely anything met his ear but the incessant drip and
trickle of the water that oozed from the shaft sides, when all at once
there was a faint sound from above, and his heart leapt with excitement.

Was it Josh at last?

"Bellow--er!" came down the shaft.

"Ahoy!" shouted back Will. "Got a rope?"

"Ay, lad; I've got un, a strong noo un as'll hold us both, a good thirty
fathom!"

"Make it fast to the iron bar, Josh!" cried Will, whose hands now felt
hot with excitement.

"Ay, I won't lose this gashly thing!" cried Josh, whose words came down
the shaft-hole wonderfully distinctly, as if a giant were whispering
near the lad's ear.

Will listened, and fancied he could hear his companion knotting the end
of the rope and fastening it round the iron bar; but he could not be
sure, and he waited as patiently as he could, but with a curious
sensation of dread coming over him. He had felt courageous enough when
he came down, indifferent, or thoughtless perhaps, as to the danger; but
this accident with the rope had, though he did not realise it, shaken
his confidence in Josh; and in addition, the long waiting in that
horrible hole had unnerved him more than he knew, full proof of which he
had ere long.

"There, she's fast enough now," came down the great granite
speaking-tube. "I'm going to send the line down, lad. She's a gashly
stiff un, but she was the best I could get. Make a good knot and hitch
in her, and sit in it; I'll soon have you up."

"All right!" shouted Will; but his voice sounded a little hoarse, and
his hands grew moister than before.

"Below there! down she comes!" said Josh; and, taking the ring of new
hempen rope, freshly stained with cutch to tan it and make it
water-resisting, he planted one foot upon the loop he had secured over
the iron bar, and threw the coil down into the pit, so that the weight
might tighten out the stiff hemp, uncoil the rings, and make it hang
straight.

The rope fell with a curious whistling crackling noise, tightening
against the fisherman's foot; and the knot would have jumped off but for
his precaution. Then it stopped with a jerk, and Josh shouted again:

"There you are, lad! See her?"

"Ye-es," came up faintly.

"Well; lay hold and make her fast round you. Hold hard a minute till
I've hauled up a fathom