"Get a longer rope from somewhere and examine thet hole thoroughly. If I only git his body it will be better nor nuthin'."
The matter was talked over for a few minutes, and then old Jacob hurried off alone, to where they had left Joseph Farvel a prisoner.
A surprise awaited the old sailor. In some unaccountable manner, Farvel had become free, and had disapperaed.
Under ordinary circumstances old Jacob would have begun an investigation but now other matters filled his head.
Farvel had left the rope which had bound him, and this the old tar appropriated.
Inside of half an hour he was back to where he had left the boys and Robert Menden.
Once more the rope was lengthened, and tested from end to end.
"Now be very careful how you hold it," said old Jacob. "It's no fool of a job to handle sech a long coil. And remember, if I whistle twice, let down; and if I whistle once, pull up. Three whistles, leave the rope as it is."
Once more he went down; first to the ledge and then to the very surface of the underground stream.
He found the water five to six feet deep, and running so strongly, that by going in up to his neck he was carried along so fiercely that the rope almost broke under the tension.
