ow you
come--the roof is lower down here. Let's see, this must be where I hit
my head in coming down. No, it can't be, for that was somewhere about
the middle of one of the slopes, I think, and this is the end, just
where it turns back and forms another slope."

Aleck ceased speaking and raised the lanthorn so as to examine the rock
above and around him more attentively.

"Nice work this for a fellow's uniform. What with the climbing and
sleeping in it I shall be in rags. But why don't you go on?" said the
midshipman.

"I--I don't quite know," said Aleck, hesitating. "It seems different
here to what it was when I came down."

"But you said you came down in the dark?"

"I did, and I suppose that's why it seems different."

"Well, never mind. Go on. It hurts my feet standing so long resting in
this nick."

Aleck was still busy with the lanthorn, and remained silent, making his
companion more impatient still.

"I say, go on," he said. "Why do you stop?"

"Because it seems to me as if I had come the wrong way, taken a wrong
turning that I did not know of--one, I suppose, that I passed in the
dark."

"But this must be right," said the midshipman; "it goes up. Here are
all the nicks for one's feet, and the part in the middle is all ground
out as if things were dragged up. Go on, old chap; you must be right."

"So I think," said Aleck; "but I can't go on. It seems to me as if the
place comes to an end here, and I can get no farther."

"That's a nice sort of a story. But you carried the light; have you
taken a wrong turning?"

"I didn't know that there were any turnings."

"Have another good look, and make sure."

Aleck peered in all directions by the aid of the lanthorn--a very short
task, seeing how they were shut in--and then carefully felt the stones.

"Well?" said the midshipman.

"I'm regularly puzzled," said Aleck. "Of course, it's very different
coming in the other direction, and by candlelight instead of the
darkness."

"Then you're regularly at fault."

"Quite."

"Try back, then. You light me and I'll lead."

They slid down to the bottom of the slope and stopped.

"I say," cried the midshipman; "you'll have to take me to your place and
find me some clothes, for I shan't have a rag on if we're going to do
much of this sort of thing."

"This must be right," said Aleck, without heeding the remark. "I can
shut my eyes here and be sure of it by the feel."

"Then it's of no us