"Not on the ground, of course; in the boat, I mean." Sam looked dubious. "Won’t it wamble? And if you tumble you’ll sink us." "Well, we can try. Take hold of the end of the ladder floating by you, and I’ll paddle close to the wall." On lifting the ladder, they found that its top came within a few feet of the roof. But when Dick began to climb, he descended in a hurry, for the ladder being of necessity set up at an angle, every upward step drove the boat from the wall towards the middle of the cave. "Be-jowned if we can do it!" cried Sam. "That there openin’ will be the death o’ me." Dick was at a loss. There was no way of keeping the boat in a fixed position. Even if he dropped the anchor and it held in the sandy bottom, the boat would still have a range of movement that altogether prohibited the success of his plan. He looked gloomily at Sam; it was vexatious to be baulked when achievement was so near. Sam, with his hands on the sides of the ladder, was gazing up its length, his eyes gradually converging as they travelled higher, until they seemed almost to be looking at each other. All at once they reverted to their natural position, and he cried: "I’ve got a noble thought, I do b’lieve." "What’s that?" "Why, ’tis as easy as anything. See that place, Maister Dick, up aloft there, where the wall goes in summat?" "Well, what then?" "I’ll show ’ee. You’d never ha’ thought of it, ’cos you was lookin’ down instead o’ lookin’ up." He drew down the ladder until its whole length lay along one side of the boat. "Look ’ee here," he said. "We’ll take the anchor, and fix it upright in middle of the ladder, lash it to the top rung, do ’ee see?" He suited the action to the word. "There! Now ’tis a hook, or a clutch, or whatever name you like to gie un. We’ll lift un again till it hooks on that ledge; then it will hang free, and you can climb as easy as climbing trees." "A capital notion, Sam," cried Dick. "I said it was, purticler for a poor mazy stunpoll of a feller like me." "You’re a genius if it works out. The thing is to try it." Raising the ladder to its former position, they moved it along the face of the wall until one fluke of the anchor held firmly to the ledge of rock, as they proved by exerting a considerable downward strain. "This is splendid," said Dick. "Now to go up." "Ah, don’t ’ee take the lantern with ’ee this time. I don’t want no more cracks on the nob, and if it fell again, ’t ’ud get soused in the water, and then we’d be in darkness." "You’re right. I’ll take the candle out and stick it in my hat as the miners do. I must have a light, of course." "I reckon you must, if you be goin’ to find that openin’," said Sam, sceptical to the last.