FUTILE ATTEMPTS AT ESCAPE.
In spite of the darkness Pomp kept on at a rapid pace.
He felt that the greater distance he put between him and the spot, the
less chance there would be of falling in to the greasers’ hands again.
“Sakes alibe!” he muttered. “I jus’ fink I keep my eyes open hereafter.
Don’ wan’ nuffin’ mo’ to do wif dem greasers. I’ll jes’ wait fo’ Marse
Frank to come back.”
But oh! had Pomp known the position of his master at that moment he
would have been thrilled with horror.
Left alone at the bottom of the shaft, the sensations experienced by
Frank and Barney were of the most despairing sort.
The air was foul and damp, and there were stagnant pools of water in
places suggestive of diseases of horrible sort.
The companionship of the skeletons of former victims was not of the
pleasantest.
Crawling into the driest places of the mine passages, Frank and Barney
sank down quite overcome.
“Well, Barney,” said the young inventor, ruefully, “this is rather a
bad outlook for us.”
“Bejabers, I should say so,” exclaimed the Celt in despair. “Shure I’m
thinkin’ we’ll be afther dyin’ in this place.”
“I fear so.”
“But shure there’s no sure thing but that rescue might cum yet.”
“It is hardly likely.”
“But it might, Misther Frank.”
“It might, but I have no belief that it will. We have only Pomp to
search for us, and he would never find this shaft. Even if he found it
he would never suspect that we were at the bottom of it.”
There was logic in this.
Their case seemed certainly a hopeless and dreary one.
There seemed nothing left to them but calm resignation to their fate.
But the indefatigable Barney would not give up.
“Shure, I wish I cud foind a way to cloimb out av the place,” he
muttered.
He crawled to the mouth of the shaft and looked up.
As he did so an exclamation escaped his lips.
It was at sight of a passage leading out of the pit and into the bowels
of the earth at a point some thirty feet above.
It was presumably an upper level of the mine.
This discovery brought Frank to the spot.
It required some careful study in the gloom to decide whether this
really was a passage or not.
It looked like a dark patch against the side of the shaft.
But finally the two prisoners decided that it was the passage of an
upper level.
With this discovery came the thought that by it escape might be made
from the mine.
It was a forlorn hope, yet the prisoners embraced it fervidly.
“But how will we get up there?” asked Frank. “I can’t see how it is to
be done myself.”
“Bejabers, that’s so,” said Barney, ruefully. “Shure, it’s a bit av a
ways up there. Av I was to sthand on yure shoulders, shure I cudn’t
reach it.”
“No,” replied Frank.
Then his eye caught sight of the rope which had been thrown into the
pit after them.
He picked it up.
Just over the passage of the upper level a cross beam was visible.
“Here, Barney!” said Frank, handing the rope to the Celt. “You have
learned the trick of throwing the lasso.”
The Celt’s eyes danced.
“Shure an’ I have that, Misther Frank!” he cried. “An’ I’ve not
forgotten it aither.”
Barney coiled the long rope carefully and made a turn about a small
stone to give it increased weight.
Then he steadied himself and flung it up into the air.
Up, up it went, uncurling as it rose and high above the beam.
But the next moment it came tumbling again down into the pit.
“I missed it that toime,” said Barney, in disgust, “but I’ll not do
that again ye may be shure.”
Once again Barney made the cast.
This time the rope went over the beam.
The stone tied to its end brought the rope down to the ground again.
Barney quickly knotted the ends together and cried:
“Shure it’s all roight now, Misther Frank, and shall I be the first to
go an up?”
“If you wish, Barney.”
The Celt went hand over hand up the rope.
He had served his time on shipboard and well knew how to go up a rope.
In a few moments he had reached the cross beam and swung himself over
into the passage.
“Come on up, Misther Frank,” he cried. “Shure I’ll steady the rope.”
“All right, Barney.”
Frank was an adept in climbing a rope himself.
In a very few moments he had reached the beam above and was quickly by
Barney’s side.
“Here we are,” he declared. “Now for business. First, let us see where
this passage can go to.”
“All right, sor.”
Frank led the way into the passage.
Fortunately he had not been deprived of his pocket lantern when
captured by the greasers.
This he now lighted and then the darkness of the place was quickly
dispelled.
It was seen that the passage extended many feet into the earth.
They followed it for what seemed fully one hundred feet.
Here it came to a termination. A blank wall of earth and quartz ledge
was before them.
There was no doubt but that the miners had once followed a vein of
quartz through this passage, and had reached what they believed to be
its termination here.
The result of this dampening discovery upon Barney and Frank was
disheartening in the extreme.
“No chance,” said Frank, gloomily. “We are in for it, Barney.”
“Bejabers, that’s so, Misther Frank,” acknowledged the Celt. “Yet, on
me worrud, I hate to give it up.”
“So do I,” agreed Frank. “But what can we do?”
“Shure, I don’t know.”
The pocket lantern burned brightly and illumined the passage.
There was plainly no way to go further. To attempt to dig a way out
would be the height of folly.
A horrible death by starvation seemed to be inevitable.
It was much drier and cleaner however in this passage than at the
bottom of the pit. So it was decided to remain here.
“We are thirty feet nearer the surface,” said Frank. “Oh, if there was
only some way to go the rest of the way.”
“Bejabers, I’m not sure but there is,” cried Barney, as he picked up
the rope. “Av yez only remimber there’s beams acrost the shaft at
intervals all the way up.”
“Yes, but they are beyond our reach.”
“Shure, mebbe I cud get the rope over thim in some way or other.”
The Celt started for the mouth of the passage imbued with this wild
hope.
Frank lighted the way with the pocket lantern.
In a few moments they had reached the mouth of the passage, and Barney
measured the distance to the beam above.
It was not more than twenty feet.
“Whurroo!” he cried, exultantly. “I tell yez I kin jest do it an’ don’t
ye fergit it. Luk out fer ye’silf.”
Balancing himself upon the beam at the mouth of the passage Barney made
a throw with the coil of rope.
It passed over the upper beam and came down so that the Celt could
grasp the other end of it.
With a cry of triumph he made the two ends fast.
“Shure, Misther Frank!” cried the brave Irishman, “whin I reach the
mouth av the shaft I’ll let the rope down an’ draw yez up.”
Frank’s heart leaped with a wild thrill of hope.
It was not impossible that Barney might succeed in his enterprise.
It was a frightful distance to overcome, but the Celt had full
confidence and any amount of pluck.
Up he went, hand over hand upon the rope.
He stood upon the beam above a moment later.
Frank shot the rays of the lantern up through the darkness of the shaft.
Barney had overcome over fifty feet of the thousand. But it was hard to
say what obstacles might not be before him.
Yet the plucky Irishman realized that any chance of the sort was better
than lying down to die at the bottom of the shaft.
“Whurroo! Misther Frank!” he cried, with exultation. “Shure, I’m makin’
out foinely. There’s another beam jist over me head.”
Frank murmured an inward prayer for the success of his faithful
servitor.
But a moment later all the hopeful plans were dashed.
An end of the rope came tumbling down. A moment later Barney came down
and swung into the passage.
“Shure, Misther Frank, it’s the ind av us!” he said, dismally.
“What?” cried Frank, “couldn’t you go any further?”
“I cudn’t, Misther Frank. Shure the nixt beam was more nor eighty feet
above me head an’ I cudn’t throw the rope over it nohow.”
The last straw seemed to have given way.
Death in its most hideous form certainly seemed to confront the two
prisoners.
A groan of despair escaped Frank’s lips. He covered his face with his
hands.
“I am not a coward,” he said, earnestly, “but truly, Barney, it seems
hard, indeed, to die in this manner.”
“Shure it’s all av that, Misther Frank,” said the brave Celt. “Av it
was not so far, I think we cud dig our way out av the place.”
With an instinctive feeling that this might be possible, they retreated
to the far end of the passage.
But the sober reflection that there were many hundred feet of earth
between them and the outer air, and that they had no tools to dig with,
dispersed this theory like mist.
Both sank down on the ground, overcome with despair.
Frank’s head was near the wall of the passage, and suddenly he
experienced a strange thrill.
An odd sound came from beyond the wall of the passage.
It was not far distant, either, and as the young inventor listened, he
heard very distinctly the ring of pickaxes and the low hum of voices.
It was an astounding discovery, and caused him to apply his ear closely
to the passage wall.