Page:The Swiss Family Robinson, In Words of One Syllable.djvu/81

Rh With a piece of chalk I made a mark on the side of the cliff, to show the width and height that the cave should be cut. Then each took an axe to try what kind of stuff our rock was made of. We found it was a hard kind of stone; and, as we were not used to this sort of work, we had not done much when the time came for us to leave off.

We came back next day, and got on with more speed, though we thought it would not take us less than six months to make the cave, if our work were done at the same rate each day.

At the end of five or six days we had got through the face of the rock, and we found the stone soft. In a day or two more we came to what was but hard clay, which gave way at a slight blow from the axe.

"We need not fear now," said I, "for we shall soon have a hole as large as we want."

With the earth we took out we made a ridge in front of the cliff. The boys now got on so well, and dug so much out, that I had hard work to throw up the earth on the bank.

One day, as Jack stuck his pick in at the back of the cave, which was now more than eight feet from the front, a great mass of the rock fell in, and he cried out, "Look here! I have got through."

"Through what?" said I. "Not through your hand, I hope."