able to make you understand your danger."

"Isn't any," said Fred.

"No danger?"

"No; and, look here, it's getting precious cold to my legs, so here
goes."

"Fred, listen! If you shake and move those branches which hold you
down, you will go to the bottom."

"Can't," cried Fred.

"How can you be so foolish, when I am advising you for your good?"

"I'm not foolish. I want to get out, and you want me to stay."

"But you'll fall to the bottom of this horrible hole."

"Can't," cried Fred.

"Can't?"

"No; I'm standing on the bottom now."

"Fred!"

"Well, so I am, with the water just over my knees."

"Oh!"

"Well, if you don't believe it, come down here and try."

CHAPTER EIGHT.

THE SUBTERRANEAN WAY.

Scarlett hung there from the hazel bough staring, and for a few moments
utterly unable to realise that which his companion had said, till Fred
gave himself a shake, like a great dog coming out of the water, and by
degrees got one leg free, then the other, trampling down the broken
wood, and standing at last on a level with his companion.

"Did you think it was deep?" said the lad.

"Deep? Yes; I did not know how deep. Then it is not a well?"

"Why, of course not. Don't you see it's the passage we were looking
for, and it does go down to the lake."

"The passage?"

"Of course. Look, you can see a little both ways. Of course the top's
broken in here. Isn't it droll that we should find it like this. But
oh! my head. I gave it such a crack when I fell. It served me just as
if I was a rabbit. I don't know how long I've been like that."

Scarlett could not answer him, so excited had he become at the strange
turn things had taken.

"There, my head's better now," said Fred, as he sat at the edge of the
hole after climbing lightly out: and as he spoke he amused himself by
kicking down fragments of the side to listen to the echoing splash.
"What do you say to going up to the house for a light? No; let's get
Nat's stable lanthorn, and then go down here and see where the way out
goes."

"I know," cried Scarlett, eagerly.

"Where?"

"Why, down there, right away by the old tree clump--right out yonder."

"There can't be a way out there, because we should have seen it."

"Perhaps it's covered up so as to keep it hidden till it was wanted."

"Let's go and see. But, stop a moment. We don't want another way in,
now we've got this."

"No," said Scarlett. "I don't know, though. Let'