CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
THE OLD FOLKS WORK.
"Then this isn't a well, after all," said Denham, who seemed struck with wonderment.
"No," I said excitedly, as all kinds of Aladdin-like ideas connected with wealth began to run through my mind; "but there's water in it, and it will serve us as a well." "Yes, of course," cried Denham.

"I say, you two have made a discovery." Then he lit a match, got it well in a blaze, and let it drop down the square shaft, when it kept burning till, at about a hundred feet below us, it went out with a faint hiss, which told that it had reached the water.
"It'll do for a well, sir," said Briggs; "and I wouldn't mind getting down it at the end of a rope.

I've done it before now, when a well's been rather doubtful, and we've had to burn flares down it to start the foul air.

That hole's as clear as can be." "How do you know ?" said Denham.
"By the way that match burned till it reached the water, sir.

If the air down there had been foul it would have been put out before it reached the surface." "But there will be no need for you to go down, sergeant," I said.