"And the bread and meat?" cried Shock. "Oh, give us a bit; I am so
bad."
"No," I said despairingly.
"What! yer won't give me a bit?" he cried fiercely.
"It isn't here," I said. "It was in my pocket, but it's gone. Stop!"
I cried; "it was a big packet and it must have come out."
I plunged my arms into the soft sand again, and worked away for long,
though I was ready to give up again and again, and my fingers were
getting painfully sore, but I worked on, and at last, to my great
delight, as I dug down something slipped slowly down on to the back of
my hands--I had dug down past it, and the sand had brought it out of the
side down to me.
"Here it is!" I cried, standing up and shaking the sand away from the
paper as I tore it open.
Shock uttered a cry like a hungry dog as he heard the paper rustle, and
then I divided the sandwiches in two parts and wrapped one back in the
paper.
"What yer doin'?" cried Shock.
"Saving half for next time," I said. "We mustn't eat all now."
Shock growled, but I paid no heed, and gave him half of what I had in my
hands, and then putting the parcel with the rest right at the end where
the sand did not fall, I sat down and we ate our gritty but welcome
meal.
We tried round the place again and again, using up the candle till the
wick fell over and dropped in the sand; and then first one match and
then another was burned till we were compelled to give up all hope of
escaping by our own efforts.
Refreshed and strengthened by the food, Shock expressed himself ready
for a new trial at digging his way out.
"I can do it," he said. "I'll soon get through."
Soon after he was clinging to me, hot, panting, and trembling in every
limb, after narrowly escaping suffocation, and when I wanted to take up
the task where he had left off, he clung to me more tightly and would
not let me go from his side.
"Yer can't do it," he said hoarsely. "Sand comes down and smothers yer.
Faster yer works, faster it comes. Let Ike bring the shovels."
There was no other chance. I felt that, and sat down beside Shock and
talked and tried to cheer him up; and when I broke down he roused up and
tried to cheer me. Then I talked to him about stories I had read, where
people had been buried alive, and where they were always dug out at
last, and when I was weary he took his turn, showing me that in his
rough way he could talk quickly and in an interesting way about catching
birds and rats. How at times he had caught rats with his hands, and had
been bitten by them.