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I shake off a first tremor, draw a full breath, and with
fortitude follow my leader carefully. As I look above, after fairly
getting committed, I can behold _Mon Amie's_ feet, whose arched in-steps
cling round each bar with a pretty dependence that is in the highest
degree appealing. Above her I hear the deep voice of the Agent.
And so the quintette, in grim harmony of enterprise, go down, down,
down, like so many human buckets, into a bottomless well.
Alas, and alas! our own arms, with their as yet untried muscles, must be
our only windlass to bring us to the surface again! Down, down, down,
deeper, deeper, deeper! Will this first ladder never end?
Ah, at last! At the foot, on either side, stand the Captain and the
Colonel, like sentries. We have reached a shelf of rock, and we may
rest. Here we perch ourselves, like sea-birds on a precipice that
overlooks the sea.
By the light of our flickering candles we behold each other's faces,
and we can talk together. We are but two hundred feet under ground.


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