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“Mr. Cuthbert,” said Agnes, “is there plenty of oil in your lantern? It would be dreadful if it were to go out and leave you there in the dark. I thought of that and brought you a little bottle of kerosene so that you can fill it. I am going to push the bottle through now, if you please.” And with this a large phial, cork end foremost, came slowly through the tube, propelled by one of the soldering irons. Then came Agnes’s voice: “Please fill your lantern immediately, because if it goes out you can not find it in the dark; and then walk several times around the cave, for you have been standing still too long already.”

I obeyed these injunctions, but in two or three minutes was again at the end of the tube. “Agnes,” said I, “how did you happen to come here? Did you contrive in your own mind this method of communicating with me?”

“Oh, yes; I did,” she said. “Everybody said that this mass of ice must not be meddled with, but I knew very well it would not hurt it to make a hole through it.”

“But how did you happen to be here?” I asked.

“Oh, I ran over as soon as I heard of the accident. Everybody ran here. The whole neighborhood is on top of the bluff; but nobody wanted to come into the tunnel, because they were afraid that more of it might fall in. So I was able to work here all by myself, and I am very glad of it. I saw the soldering iron and the little furnace outside of your house where the plumbers had been using them, and I brought them here myself. Then I thought that a simple hole through the ice might soon freeze up again, and if you were alive inside I could not do anything to help you; and so I ran home and got my diploma case, that had had one end melted out of it, and I brought that to stick in the hole. I’m so glad that it is long enough, or almost.”

“Oh, Agnes,” I cried, “you thought of all this for me?”

“Why, of course, Mr. Cuthbert,” she answered, before I had a chance to say anything more. “You were in great danger of perishing before the men got to you, and nobody seemed to think of any way to give you immediate relief. And don’t you think that a collegiate education is a good thing for girls–at least, that it was for me?”

“Agnes,” I exclaimed, “please let me speak. I want to tell you, I must tell you–“

But the voice of Agnes was clearer than mine and it overpowered my words. “Mr. Cuthbert,” she said, “we can not both speak through this tube at the same time in opposite directions. I have here a bottle of water for you, but I am very much afraid it will not go through the diploma case.”

“Oh, I don’t want any water,” I said. “I can eat ice if I am thirsty. What I want is to tell you-“

“Mr. Cuthbert,” said she, “you must not eat that ice. Water that was frozen countless ages ago may be very different from the water of modern times, and might not agree with you. Don’t touch it, please. I am going to push the bottle through if I can. I tried to think of everything that you might need and brought them all at once; because, if I could not keep the hole open, I wanted to get them to you without losing a minute.”

Now the bottle came slowly through. It was a small beer-bottle, I think, and several times I was afraid it was going to stick fast and cut off communication between me and the outer world–that is to say, between me and Agnes. But at last the cork and the neck appeared, and I pulled it through. I did not drink any of it, but immediately applied my mouth to the tube.