-ring, and buckled it
on once more.

"Will you go first, Samson?" said Fred.

"No; I mean to go last. I don't leave here till I see you both safe.
What should I have said to your mothers if you'd been lost and not found
for a hundred years? Nice state of affairs that would ha' been."

"Go on first, Scar," said Fred; "we'll hold the rope tight, so that it
will be easy."

Scarlett reached up, seized the rope, and began to climb, getting the
thick cord well round his legs, as he struggled up for nearly twenty
feet, and then he slipped down again.

"Can't we go down the other way, and climb the cliff?"

"No, you can't," said Samson, gruffly. "You've got to go up as you come
down. Here, Master Fred, show him the way."

Fred seized the rope, and began to climb, but with no better success;
and he, too, glided down again after a severe struggle.

"The rope's so slippery," he said angrily.

"And you call yourselves young gentlemen!" grunted Samson. "Why, you'd
ha' been just as badly off if your rope hadn't slipped. Here, give us
hold."

Samson seized the rope, and they heard him grunt and pant and cease his
struggle, and then begin to grunt and pant again for quite ten minutes,
when, just as they rather maliciously hoped that he would prove as
awkward as themselves, they heard the lanthorn bang against the rock, a
shower of shale fell as it was kicked off, and Samson's voice came
down--

"Line is a bit slithery," he said; "but I'm all right now."

They could not see, but they in imagination felt that he had reached the
first slope, up which he was climbing, and then felt when he passed up
the second, showers of shale and earth following every moment, till, all
at once, there was a cessation of noise, and of the shower, and Samson's
bluff voice exclaimed--

"Up a top! Now, then, lay hold, and I'll have you up to where you can
climb."

"Go on, Scar."

"Go on, Fred."

The boys spoke together, and, after a little argument, Scarlett seized
the rope, felt himself hoisted up, and, once up at the slope, he soon
reached daylight, Fred following in the same way, to stand in the
sunshine, gazing at his companions, who, like himself, were covered with
perspiration and dust.

"You look nice ones, you do," said Samson, grinning; "and all that there
trouble for nothing."

But Samson was a very ignorant man, who knew a great deal about
gardening, but knew nothing whatever about the future, though in that
instanc