What Shall We Do

I seemed to be standing there some time, but Mr Solomon afterwards told
me it was not a moment, before I looked up, and seeing him returning
with the plumber, ran towards them swiftly, shouting for help.

The two men started running directly, and as we reached the well
together there was Philip lying upon the ground beside the path, face
downwards, and with his fingers thrust into his ears.

"Now, then," shouted Mr Solomon to the plumber, as Ike came running up
straight across beds, bushes, everything. "Now, then, you said the well
was safe; go down and fetch him up."

The plumber went upon one knee, seized the top of the ladder, and got up
again shaking his head.

"I can't afford it," he said. "I've a wife and bairns at home."

"I--I daren't go down," groaned Mr Solomon. "Man, man, what shall we
do?"

"It scares me," growled Ike hoarsely; "but I've got no wife and no
bairns; and if Master Grant here says, `Go,' I'll go, though," he added
slowly, "it's going down into one's grave."

"Can you see him, Grant?" cried Mr Solomon.

"Yes; down on the wood," I said in a hoarse whisper; "he's lying across
a beam with his head down. What shall we do?"

As I asked this piteously I raised my head, to see Philip close by me
kneeling on the gravel, his eyes half closed, his face of a yellowish
grey, his hands clenched, and his teeth chattering.

No one spoke, and as I looked from one man to the other every face was
pale and stony-looking, for the men felt that to go down into that
carbonic acid gas was to give up life.