It was a position perilous enough to alarm the stoutest-hearted man, and
awkward enough without the danger to puzzle any schemer, and for a few
minutes the lad stood with one hand resting on the rock, and the cold
perspiration gathering on his forehead, trying to think what he had
better do.
As he stood, there was a low whispering noise that came up the shaft--a
noise that puzzled him as to what it could be, for he did not realise
that the water down below had, when set in motion by the fall of the
rope, kept on lapping at the side, and that this lapping sound echoed
and repeated itself strangely from the shaft-walls.
"Say, my lad--below there!" came now from above.
"Ahoy!" answered Will, the call acting like an electric shock and
bringing him to himself.
"Where are you?" shouted Josh.
"Here, in a gallery of the old mine," replied Will.
"That's right!" came back. "I thought perhaps you had fallen."
"No, I'm all right," cried Will through the great granite speaking-tube;
and then he listened for some words of comfort from his companion.
"Below!" shouted Josh again.
"Hullo!"
"Say, my lad, the rope's gone down."
"Yes, I know."
"Well, what's to be done?" cried Josh.
Will turned cold. He had expected to get a few words of comfort from
his companion, and to hear that he was about to propose some plan for
his rescue, and all he seemed ready to do was to ask for advice.
"How came you to let the rope go?" cried Will, forcing himself into an
angry fit so as to keep from feeling alarmed at his position.
"Dunno! It kind o' went all of itself like," Josh shouted back.
"What's to be done? Can't jump down into the water and swim out by the
adit, can you?"
"No," cried Will angrily. "Here, go back and get a rope."
"Where?" shouted back Josh. "I say, I knowed you'd be getting into some
mess or another going down there."
Will was equable enough in temper, but a remark like this from the man
he had trusted with his life made him grind his teeth in a fit of anger,
and wish he were beside Josh for a moment, to give him a bit of his
mind.
"Go up to any of the fishermen, never mind where, and borrow a line."
"All right!"
"And, Josh."
"Hullo!"
"Don't make any fuss; don't alarm anybody. I don't want them to know at
home."
"But suppose we never get you out again?" shouted Josh, in a tone of
voice that startled a shag which was about to settle on a shelf of rock
hard by, and sent it hurrying away to sea.
Will stamped his foot at this, and mentally vowed that he would never
trust Josh again.
"Go and borrow a line," he cried, "and look sharp. I don't want any one
to know."
"All right!" cried Josh; and directly after Will knew that he was alone.
The place was not absolutely dark, for he could plainly make out the
edge of the gallery, seen as it were against a faint twilight that came
from above; and this was sufficient to guide him as to how far he dare
go towards the shaft if he wished to move.
For the first few minutes, though, he felt no disposition that way, and
seating himself on the stony floor, with hundreds of loose fragments of
granite beneath him, he tried to be calm and cool, and to come to a
conclusion as to how he should escape.
If Josh came back soon with a rope it would be easy enough; and possibly
they might be able to rig up a grappling-iron or "creeper," as the
fishermen called it, for the line that was lost; but a little
consideration told him that in all probability the line had sunk before
now and was right at the bottom of the shaft.
Then he wondered how long Josh would be, and whether he would have much
difficulty in borrowing a rope.
If Josh said at once what was the matter, there would be a crowd up at
the head of the shaft directly with a score of lines; but he did not
wish for that. Even in his awkward, if not perilous, position he did
not want the village to be aware of his investigations. He had been
carrying them on in secret for some time, and he hoped when they were
made known to have something worth talking about.
How long Josh seemed, and how dark it was! Perhaps he was being asked
for at home, and he would be in disgrace.
That was not likely, though. He had chosen his time too well.
"I wonder how far it is down to the water?" he said at last; and feeling
about, his hand came in contact with a large thin piece of stone, as big
as an ordinary tile.
He hesitated for a moment or two, and then threw it from him with such
force that it struck the far side of the shaft and sent up a series of
echoes before, from far below, there came a dull sullen plash, with a
succession of whishing, lapping sounds, such as might have been given
out if some monster had come to the top and were swimming round,
disappointed by what had fallen not being food.
"It's all nonsense!" said Will. "I don't believe any fish or eel would
be living in an old shaft."
Some of the mining people were in the habit of saying that each
water-filled pit, deep, mysterious, and dark, held strange creatures, of
what kind no one knew, for individually they had never seen anything;
but "some one" had told them that there were such creatures, and "some
one else" had been "some one's" authority: for the lower orders of
Cornish folk, with all their honest simplicity and religious feeling,
are exceedingly superstitious, and much given to a belief in old women's
tales.