No sooner had they made this discovery than they at once caught at this prospect which thus had so unexpectedly opened before them, and began to climb. The task was not very difficult. Each one took a corner of the pit where the meeting of the two walls favored the ascent, and for some time they continued to mount without much difficulty.
“Sure but I’m afraid this is too good to last,” said Pat.
Bart made no reply. That very fear was in his own mind. In that suspense he could say nothing. At last they had mounted as high as the place where the rope had broken. The end hung here suspended most tantalizingly. O, what joy it would have been for them had it been the rope alone which had thus broken,—if the beam had only continued sound; but now that rope was useless, and they dared not touch it for fear lest even a touch might bring down upon their heads the beam that hung there impending over them. Fortunately they were able to ascend yet higher, for still above them the log casing had been started asunder, and still they found themselves able to grasp places of support. The staying had certainly undergone a universal disintegration, and nothing but its great compactness had prevented it from falling in ruin over their heads, and burying them alive. It was with amazement and consternation that they recognized their work, and these feelings would have overwhelmed them had they not found the result, after all, so fortunate for themselves. The risk had passed away. For the present, at least, they were receiving the benefit.
The fear which Pat had expressed, and which Bart had felt without expressing, that the ascent was too good a thing to last, was at length proved to be only too well founded. After they had climbed some distance farther, they found their ascent brought to an abrupt termination. For here there was a kind of separation between the lower casing and the upper; a log bulged forward about a foot, and above this there was a gap in the casing about two feet in height which showed the earth behind, a kind of clay, and in this there was a cavity caused by the falling of the casing. Above this the casing had held firm, but unfortunately they had not reached the planks. They were the same round logs which rose above them, and which would be as difficult to scale from this point as they had proved from below.
Upon this ledge, formed by the bulging logs, they clambered, and seated themselves, dejected at the termination of their ascent, yet relieved slightly by the chance which was now afforded of some rest and breathing space. Here they sat, and looked up.
“Sure an it’s hard, so it is,” said Pat, “to find an ind to it just here, whin, if we’d only been able to climb twinty or thirty feet further, we’d have got to the planks, an been all safe.”
“Yes,” said Bart, looking up, “there are the planks; and they’re not more than thirty feet above us at the farthest.”
“An yit they’re as much out of our raich as though they were a hundred, so they are.”
“I’d rather have the thirty feet, at any rate,” said Bart. “Come now; can’t we manage to get farther up.”
“Nivir a farther,” said Pat. “We’ve got to the ind of our journey.”
“Come now,” said Bart. “See here, Pat. You spoke of a tunnel once. In fact we came down here with the pickaxe on purpose to make a tunnel to the money-hole. Well, we’re after something more precious than money—life itself. Can’t we tunnel up to life?”
“Tunnel, is it?” cried Pat, in great excitement. “Of coorse we can. Ye’ve jist hit it, so you have. It’s what we’ll do. We will thin.”
“The soil here seems like clay; and if we cut up behind this casing, it’ll be comparatively safe,” said Bart. “We need only cut up to the planks.”
“Sure an we’ll have to cut up to the top.”
“O, no! When we get to the planks, we can break through, and climb them like a ladder to the top. Once up to the planks, and we’re safe.”
“Break through the plankin is it? Sure enough; right are you; that’s what we’ll do, so it is.”
“And so that makes only thirty feet to cut away. It’ll be hard work cutting upwards; but you and I ought to manage it, Pat, when our lives are at stake.”
“Manage it? Of coorse; why not? Only we haven’t got that bit of a pick with us, so we haven’t, for we left it down below; an sorra one of me knows what’s become of it. It may be buried under the roons of the fallin logs.”
At this Bart looked at Pat with something like consternation.
“Well,” said he at length, “we’ll have to go down again—one of us; we must have that pickaxe. I’ll go.”
“Sure an you won’t,” said Pat; “meself’s the one that’s goin to go.”
“No, you shan’t. Poh! Don’t be absurd.”
“Sure I’m bound to go; and so don’t you go too. There’s not the laste nicissity in life for both of us to go.”
“O, well, then,” said Bart, “we’ll have to toss up for it. That’s all.”
And saying this, he took out a piece of money, and said to Pat—
“Head or Tail?”
“Tail,” said Pat.
Bart tossed. Pat lost. It was Pat’s business therefore to go down.
“Sure an it’s aisy climbin,” said Pat, “an the pick’ll be a help whin I returrun.”
With these words he departed.
Seated on the log, Bart looked down, watching Pat’s descent. They had climbed about half way up the pit, and Pat had about fifty feet to go down. Looking down, it was dark, and Pat at length disappeared from view. Bart could only hear him as he moved about. At length there was a deep stillness.
Bart grew alarmed.
“Pat!” he called.
No answer came.
“Pat!” he called again.
Still no answer.
“Pat!” he called, as loud as he could, for he was now thoroughly frightened. As he called, he put his feet over, and prepared to descend.
“I’m here,” Pat’s voice came up. “Don’t come down. I’m coming up.”
These words filled Bart with a feeling of immense relief. He now heard Pat moving again, and at length saw him ascending. Nearer he came, and nearer. But Bart noticed that he did not have the pickaxe. He feared by this that it had been buried beneath the fallen logs. If so, their situation was as desperate as ever. But he said not a word.
Pat at length reached the place where Bart was, and flung himself down, panting heavily. Bart watched him in silence.
“The pickaxe is buried,” said he at length, “I suppose.”
“Worse,” said Pat, with something like a groan.
“Worse?” repeated Bart in dismay.
“Yis, worse,” said Pat. “The water’s comin in. There’s six feet of it, an more too. The hole’s flooded, an fillin up.”
At this awful intelligence Bart sat petrified with horror, and said not one word.
“It’s the diggin away at the casin,” said Pat, dolefully, “an the cuttin away of the earth, that’s done the business, so it is. I can onderstand it all easy enough. Sure this pit’s close by the money-hole, an the bottom of it’s close by the drain that they towld us of. An them that made this hole didn’t dare to go one inch further. An that’s the very thing, so it is, that we’ve done. We’ve cut, and dug, and broke through into the drain. What’s worse, all the casin an all the earth’s broke and fallen down. An there’s no knowin the mischief we’ve done. Any how, we’ve broke through to the “drain”—bad luck to