When she
came opposite the passage, with a slight push of her tail she shot
herself into it, and let go the rope, which Curdie drew up.
Then he lighted his candle and searching in the rubbish found a bit
of iron to take the place of his pickaxe across the hole. Then he
searched again in the rubbish, and found half an old shutter. This
he propped up leaning a little over the hole, with a bit of stick,
and heaped against the back of it a quantity of the loosened earth.
Next he tied his mattock to the end of the rope, dropped it, and
let it hang. Last, he got through the hole himself, and pulled
away the propping stick, so that the shutter fell over the hole
with a quantity of earth on the top of it. A few motions of hand
over hand, and he swung himself and his mattock into the passage
beside Lina.
There he secured the end of the rope, and they went on together to
the door.
CHAPTER 17
The Wine Cellar
He lighted his candle and examined it. Decayed and broken as it
was, it was strongly secured in its place by hinges on the one
side, and either lock or bolt, he could not tell which, on the
other. A brief use of his pocket-knife was enough to make room for
his hand and arm to get through, and then he found a great iron
bolt - but so rusty that he could not move it.
Lina whimpered. He took his knife again, made the hole bigger, and
stood back.
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