Light the lanthorn and fasten, it to the end of the rope." This was soon done and the light drawn up.
"I say, play fair!" cried Mike, as the lanthorn disappeared; "don't go and do all the fun yourself." For answer Vince threw him down the rope, which he had freed from the lanthorn.
"Come up," he said shortly; and Mike, who began to be deeply interested, his curiosity now being excited, seized the rope and began in turn to climb.
He was as active as his companion, and as much accustomed to rope work, the pair having often let themselves down portions of the cliff and climbed again in their search for eggs; so that in another minute he too was in the crack, dimly lit by the lanthorn, which Vince had set low down, where the fracture in the rock began to close in towards where it was again solid.
"Don't seem much of a place," said Mike, rising upright, but having to keep himself in that position by resting a foot on either side of the rift.

"Goes in, though." "Yes," said Vince, "and I was right, for the pigeons must have flown through." "No," said Mike, looking about: "nests somewhere on one of the ledges." "Are no ledges here," said Vince: "the top goes up to a point.

Shall we go on ?" "Of course," said Mike; and, taking up the lanthorn, Vince began to shuffle himself along the narrow, awkward place, till, at the end of a dozen yards, in darkness which grew thicker as he went, the great crack turned suddenly right off to the right, and again directly after to the left.
"Why, it looks just the same shape as a flash of lightning," cried Mike.
"Does it get any bigger ?" "Doesn't seem to," was the reply; "but there's plenty of room to walk along." "Walk?
I don't call this walking?
I'm going along like a lame duck striddling a gutter.

I say, think there's ever been water along here ?" "Sure there hasn't," said Vince, holding the light low down.

"Why, you can see.