"You don't mean to leave me down here forever, do you?"
"No, of course not; but--Oh, I know! I'll send a boat for you. So, just wait patiently a little while longer and you shall be taken off."
"I say! hold on!" cried Richard; but his words were unheeded, for, acting on the impulse of the moment, the other had disappeared, and he was talking to empty space.
"Confound the boy!" he exclaimed, impatiently. "I never heard of anything so utterly absurd. Why, in the name of common-sense, should he object to showing me the way out of his old cave? One would think that ordinary humanity--But boys are such heartless young beggars that there's no such thing as appealing to their sympathies. If it had only been his sister now!"
In the meantime Mary Darrell had hastened from the cavern full of her new plan for rescuing the prisoner without betraying the secret of the underground passage.
She at first thought of appealing to her father for aid, but, remembering his bitterness against the young man, decided to act without him. So she called two miners who were at work about the mouth of the shaft and bade them follow her. As they did so she led the way to the basin, and, entering a boat, ordered the men to row her out into the lake.
They obeyed without hesitation, and, as Mary steered, she soon had the satisfaction of seeing her prisoner just where she had left him.
He was at the same time relieved of a growing anxiety by the approach of the boat, in which he finally recognized the young fellow who, although acting so curiously, had, on the whole, proved himself a friend.
The boat approached so close to the ledge that Mary had given the order to cease rowing before the oarsmen turned their heads to see where they were. As they did so, they uttered a simultaneous cry of terror, again seized their oars, whirled their light craft around, and, in spite of Mary Darrell's angry protestations, began to row with frantic haste back in the direction from which they had come.
Although Peveril was not so much surprised at this proceeding as he might have been had he not recognized the villain Rothsky in the bow-oarsman, he was bitterly disappointed, and paced up and down his narrow prison with restless impatience.