Part 26

"It is like coal mines," he said, beginning to crawl on hands and knees over what felt like very prickly beach, "only we've no picks or shovels."

"And no Sir Humphry Davy safety lamps," said Denny in sadness.

"They wouldn't be any good," said Oswald; "they're only to protect the hard-working mining men against fire-damp and choke-damp. And there's none of those kinds here."

"No," said Denny, "the damp here is only just the common kind."

"Well, then," said Oswald, and they crawled a bit further still on their furtive and unassuming stomachs.

"This is a very glorious adventure. It is, isn't it?" inquired the Dentist in breathlessness, when the young stomachs of the young explorers had bitten the dust for some yards further.

"Yes," said Oswald, encouraging the boy, "and it's your find, too," he added, with admirable fairness and justice, unusual in one so young. "I only hope we shan't find a mouldering skeleton buried alive behind that door when we get to it. Come on. What are you stopping for now?" he added kindly.

"It's--it's only cobwebs in my throat," Denny remarked, and he came on, though slower than before.

Oswald, with his customary intrepid caution, was leading the way, and he paused every now and then to strike a match because it was pitch dark, and at any moment the courageous leader might have tumbled into a well or a dungeon, or knocked his dauntless nose against something in the dark.

"It's all right for you," he said to Denny, when he had happened to kick his follower in the eye. "You've nothing to fear except my boots, and whatever they do is accidental, and so it doesn't count, but I may be going straight into some trap that has been yawning for me for countless ages."

"I won't come on so fast, thank you," said the Dentist. "I don't think you've kicked my eye out yet."

So they went on and on, crampedly crawling on what I have mentioned before, and at last Oswald did not strike the next match carefully enough, and with the suddenness of a falling star his hands, which, with his knees, he was crawling on, went over the edge into infinite space, and his chest alone, catching sharply on the edge of the precipice, saved him from being hurled to the bottom of it.

"Halt!" he cried, as soon as he had any breath again. But, alas! it was too late! The Dentist's nose had been too rapid, and had caught up the boot-heel of the daring leader. This was very annoying to Oswald, and was not in the least his fault.

"Do keep your nose off my boots half a sec.," he remarked, but not crossly. "I'll strike a match."

And he did, and by its weird and unscrutatious light looked down into the precipice.

Its bottom transpired to be not much more than six feet below, so Oswald turned the other end of himself first, hung by his hands, and dropped with fearless promptness, uninjured, in another cellar. He then helped Denny down. The cornery thing Denny happened to fall on could not have hurt him so much as he said.

The light of the torch, I mean match, now revealed to the two bold and youthful youths another cellar, with things in it--very dirty indeed, but of thrilling interest and unusual shapes, but the match went out before we could see exactly what the things were.

The next match was the last but one, but Oswald was undismayed, whatever Denny may have been. He lighted it and looked hastily round. There was a door.

"Bang on that door--over there, silly!" he cried, in cheering accents, to his trusty lieutenant; "behind that thing that looks like a chevaux de frize."

Denny had never been to Woolwich, and while Oswald was explaining what a chevaux de frize is, the match burnt his fingers almost to the bone, and he had to feel his way to the door and hammer on it yourself.

The blows of the others from the other side were deafening.

All was saved.

It was the right door.

"Go and ask for candles and matches," shouted the brave Oswald. "Tell them there are all sorts of things in here--a chevaux de frize of chair-legs, and----"

"A shovel of what?" asked Dicky's voice hollowly from the other side of the door.

"Freeze," shouted Denny. "I don't know what it means, but do get a candle and make them unbarricade the door. I don't want to go back the way we came." He said something about Oswald's boots that he was sorry for afterwards, so I will not repeat it, and I don't think the others heard, because of the noise the barrels made while they were being climbed over.

This noise, however, was like balmy zephyrs compared to the noise the barrels insisted on making when Dicky had collected some grown-ups and the barrels were being rolled away. During this thunder-like interval Denny and Oswald were all the time in the pitch dark. They had lighted their last match, and by its flickering gleam we saw a long, large mangle.

"It's like a double coffin," said Oswald, as the match went out. "You can take my arm if you like, Dentist."