to the moat, and we
think it was a boathouse in middle-aged times.

Denny made a back for Oswald, who led the way, and then he turned round
and hauled up his inexperienced, but rapidly improving, follower on to
the top of the wall that did not go quite up to the roof.

"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,