第33章

Those who heard them fancied he was trying to get out, and laughed spitefully.As soon as he had done, he extinguished his candle, and went down to Lina.

She had reached the hard rock which formed the floor of the dungeon, and was now clearing away the earth a little wider.

Presently she looked up in his face and whined, as much as to say, 'My paws are not hard enough to get any farther.'

'Then get out of my way, Lina,' said Curdie, and mind you keep your eyes shining, for fear I should hit you.'

So saying, he heaved his mattock, and assailed with the hammer end of it the spot she had cleared.

The rock was very hard, but when it did break it broke in good-sized pieces.Now with hammer, now with pick, he worked till he was weary, then rested, and then set to again.He could not tell how the day went, as he had no light but the lamping of Lina's eyes.The darkness hampered him greatly, for he would not let Lina come close enough to give him all the light she could, lest he should strike her.So he had, every now and then, to feel with his hands to know how he was getting on, and to discover in what direction to strike: the exact spot was a mere imagination.

He was getting very tired and hungry, and beginning to lose heart a little, when out of the ground, as if he had struck a spring of it, burst a dull, gleamy, lead-coloured light, and the next moment he heard a hollow splash and echo.A piece of rock had fallen out of the floor, and dropped into water beneath.Already Lina, who had been lying a few yards off all the time he worked, was on her feet and peering through the hole.Curdie got down on his hands and knees, and looked.They were over what seemed a natural cave in the rock, to which apparently the river had access, for, at a great distance below, a faint light was gleaming upon water.If they could but reach it, they might get out; but even if it was deep enough, the height was very dangerous.The first thing, whatever might follow, was to make the hole larger.It was comparatively easy to break away the sides of it, and in the course of another hour he had it large enough to get through.

And now he must reconnoitre.He took the rope they had tied him with - for Curdie's hindrances were always his furtherance - and fastened one end of it by a slipknot round the handle of his pickaxes then dropped the other end through, and laid the pickaxe so that, when he was through himself, and hanging on the edge, he could place it across the hole to support him on the rope.This done, he took the rope in his hands, and, beginning to descend, found himself in a narrow cleft widening into a cave.His rope was not very long, and would not do much to lessen the force of his fall - he thought to himself - if he should have to drop into the water; but he was not more than a couple of yards below the dungeon when he spied an opening on the opposite side of the cleft: it might be but a shadow hole, or it might lead them out.He dropped himself a little below its level, gave the rope a swing by pushing his feet against the side of the cleft, and so penduled himself into it.Then he laid a stone on the end of the rope that it should not forsake him, called to Lina, whose yellow eyes were gleaming over the mattock grating above, to watch there till he returned, and went cautiously in.It proved a passage, level for some distance, then sloping gently up.He advanced carefully, feeling his way as he went.At length he was stopped by a door -a small door, studded with iron.But the wood was in places so much decayed that some of the bolts had dropped out, and he felt sure of being able to open it.He returned, therefore, to fetch Lina and his mattock.Arrived at the cleft, his strong miner arms bore him swiftly up along the rope and through the hole into the dungeon.There he undid the rope from his mattock, and making Lina take the end of it in her teeth, and get through the hole, he lowered her - it was all he could do, she was so heavy.When she came opposite the passage, with a slight push of her tail she shot herself into it, and let go the rope, which Curdie drew up.

Then he lighted his candle and searching in the rubbish found a bit of iron to take the place of his pickaxe across the hole.Then he searched again in the rubbish, and found half an old shutter.This he propped up leaning a little over the hole, with a bit of stick, and heaped against the back of it a quantity of the loosened earth.

Next he tied his mattock to the end of the rope, dropped it, and let it hang.Last, he got through the hole himself, and pulled away the propping stick, so that the shutter fell over the hole with a quantity of earth on the top of it.A few motions of hand over hand, and he swung himself and his mattock into the passage beside Lina.

There he secured the end of the rope, and they went on together to the door.