there are any enemies down there they're poisonous."

"What do you think possibly can be down there--one of the fierce cats of
the country?"

"No," said Chris, smiling queerly. "Rattlers."

"Ugh!"

"If there are any we shall see them when the lanthorn's swung down.
Why, it will be a good bit of sport for you to have a shot at them."

"The horrible beasts!" said Wilton.

"We're ready when you are," said Griggs from the chamber. "The light's
burning quite brightly."

"Bring it here, then.--I say, Mr Wilton, there isn't room for all of us
on this bit of a landing. Will you go up to the top and be ready to
fire?"

"No," said Wilton shortly. "I'll leave it to you and Ned."

He stepped back to join his friends in the chamber, and then, seeing how
they were occupied, he stepped out on to the remains of the terrace, to
stand there examining the openings in the cliff-face opposite.

"That's right, Griggs, swing it down gently," said Chris. "You, Ned,
unsling your gun, and the first rattler you see give him a charge of
small shot."

Ned fixed himself against the wall with his left arm round one of the
projections, cocked his piece, and stood ready with the muzzle pointed
downward, gazing the while into the darkness far below, now beginning to
be illumined by the swinging lanthorn, as Griggs paid out the rope and
sent it lower and lower.

"You can see the heap of stuff--ashes, lying in a slope now," cried
Chris, who was watching intently. "Look, there's one of those--you know
what--looking almost white and shining.--Isn't that something moving,
Griggs?"

"Can't see anything yet but that pile of stuff that went down. I say,
it's not so very deep, after all."

"Thirty feet at least," said Chris decisively.--"There, I'm sure of
that. I saw something move right over in that--"

"Corner," he was going to say, but the word was smothered by the sharp
echoing report of Ned's piece, whose flash seemed brighter than the
light of the lanthorn, which glowed like a dull star now disappearing in
a passing cloud of smoke.

"A rattler?" cried Chris.

"I'm not sure, but I saw something gliding along, and I fired."

"Good boy! Quite right! Sharp's the word. But I say, what a smother
you've made. Get in another cartridge."

_Click_! went Ned's piece as he closed the breech.

"If that was a rattler," said Griggs coolly, "seems as if it was just as
well that I didn't go down last night."

"And this morning too,