"You lead with the lanthorn, Hardock," said the Colonel, as the man and
his companions stepped out of the second skep and had to wade knee-deep
for a few yards from the bottom of the shaft, the road lying low beneath
the high, cavernous entrance to the mine, at one side of which a tiny
stream of clear water was trickling. There the bottom began to rise at
the same rate as the roof grew lower; and soon they were, if not on dry
land, walking over a floor of damp, slimy rock.
"Keep straight on, sir?" said the captain.
"Yes, right on. They would not have entered the side gallery, or we
should have met them as we came out."
The first side gallery, a turning off to the left, was reached, and, but
for the fact that the Colonel's party had strayed into that part by
accident, it would have been passed unseen, as it was by the boys and
Dinass, for the entrance was so like the rock on either side, and it
turned off at such an acute angle, that it might have been passed a
hundred times without its existence being known.
The men were very silent, but they kept on raising their lanthorns and
glancing at the roof and sides as they tramped on behind the Colonel.
"There's good stuff here," whispered Vores to his nearest companion.
"Yes, I've been noticing," was the reply. "It's a fine mine, and
there's ore enough to keep any number of us going without travelling
far."
"Yes," said Vores. "Worked as they used to do it in the old days, when
they only got out the richest stuff."
Just then Hardock stopped, and, upon the others closing up, they found
themselves at an opening on the right--one which struck right back, and,
like the other, almost invisible to anyone passing with a dim light.
"Shall we give a good shout here, sir?" said Hardock.
"Yes," was the reply; and the men hailed as with one voice, sending a
volume of sound rolling and echoing down the passage of the main road
and along its tributary.
Then all stood silent, listening to the echoes which died away in the
distance, making some of the experienced miners, accustomed as they were
to such underground journeys, shiver and look strange.
"Vasty place, mate," whispered Vores to Hardock, after they had all
hailed again and listened vainly for a reply.
"Vasty?" said Hardock. "Ay! The gashly place is like a great net, and
seems to have no end."
"Forward," said the Colonel. "No, stop. We have plenty of candles,
have we not?"
"Yes, sir, heaps," was the reply.
"Light one, then, and stick it in a crevice of the rock here at the
corner."
While the man was busily executing the order, the Colonel took out his
pocket-book, wrote largely on a leaf, "Gone in search of you. Wait till
we return," and tore it out to place it close to the candle where the
light could shine on the white scrap of paper.
Then on they went again, with the experienced miners talking to one
another in whispers, as with wondering eyes they took note of the value
of the traces they kept on seeing in the rugged walls of the main
gallery they traversed--tokens hardly heeded by the two boys in their
anxiety to gain tidings of their fathers.
"It's going to be a grand place, my son," whispered Vores; "and only to
think of it, for such a mine to have lain untouched ever since the time
of our great-great-gaffers--great-great-great-great, ever so many
great-gaffers, and nobody thinking it worth trying."
"Ay, but there must have been some reason," said the other.
"Bah! Old women's tales about goblin sprites and things that live
underground. We never saw anything uglier than ourselves, though, did
we, all the years we worked in mines?"
"Nay, I never did," said the man who walked beside Vores; "but still
there's no knowing what may be, my lad, and it seems better to hold
one's tongue when one's going along in the dark in just such a place as
strange things might be living in."
Hardock stopped where another branch went off at a sharp angle, his
experienced eyes accustomed to mines and dense darkness, making them
plain directly; and here another shout was sent volleying down between
the wet gleaming walls, to echo and vibrate in a way which sounded
awful; but when the men shouted again the echoes died away into
whispers, and then rose again more wildly, but only to die finally into
silence.
Without waiting for an order, Hardock lit and fixed another candle
against the glittering wall of the mine passage, the Colonel wrote on a
slip of paper, and this too was placed where it must be seen; but the
Colonel hesitated as if about to alter the wording.
"No," he said, "I dare not tell them to make for the sumph, they might
lose their way. You feel sure that you can bring us back by here,
Hardock?"
The man was silent for a few moments, and then he spoke in a husky
voice.
"No, sir," he said, "I can't say I am. I think I can, but I thought so
this morning. The place is all a puzzle of confusion, and it's so big.
Next time we come down I'll have a pail of paint and a brush, and paint
arrows pointing to the foot of the shaft at every turn. But I'll try my
best."
"Ay, we'll all try, sir," said Harry Vores.
"Forward!" cried the Colonel, abruptly; and once more they went on till
all at once, after leaving candle after candle burning, they reached a
part where the main lode seemed to have suddenly broken up into
half-a-dozen, each running in a different direction, and spreading
widely, the two outer going off at very obtuse angles.
Here they paused, unconscious of the fact that they had passed the spot,
only a couple of hundred yards back, where the boys had made their
heroic resolve to go on.
"Let me see," said the Colonel, excitedly; "it was the third passage
from the left that we took this morning."
Hardock raised his lanthorn and stared vacantly in his employer's face.
"No, sir, no," he cried breathlessly; "the third coming from the right."
"No, no, you are wrong. The third from the left; I counted them this
morning--six of these branches. Why, Hardock, there are seven of them
now."
"Yes, sir, seven, and that one running from the right-hand one makes
eight. I did not see those two this morning by our one lanthorn. There
are--yes--eight."
"What are we all to do? My head is growing hopelessly confused."
He gazed piteously at Hardock, who seemed to be in a like hopeless
plight, suffering as they both were from exhaustion.
"I--I'm not sure, sir, now. We went in and out of so many galleries,
all ending just the same, that I'm afraid I've lost count."
"Oh, Hardock! Hardock!" groaned the Colonel, "this is horrible. We
must not break down, man. Try and think; oh, try and think. Remember
that those two boys are lost, and they are wandering helplessly in
search of us. They will go on and on into the farther recesses of this
awful place, and lie down at last to die--giving their lives for ours.
There, there, I am babbling like some idiot. Forward, my men; there is
no time to lose. We must find them."
"Yes, sir; we must find them," cried Hardock; "which passage shall we
take?"
"Stop a moment," said the Colonel, in a voice which seemed to have
suddenly grown feeble; and he signed to the mining captain to light a
candle and place it where they stood, while he tremblingly wrote on
another leaf of his pocket-book,--
"Make for the pit-shaft."
He tore out the leaf, and the men noticed how his hand trembled; and he
stood waiting for it to be taken by Hardock, who had sunk on his knees
and was holding the candle sidewise, so that a little of the grease
might drip into a crack where he meant to stick the candle close to the
side.
Hardock groaned as he rose and took the paper, staggering as he stooped
again to place it by the candle. But he recovered his steadiness again
directly, and looked, to the Colonel for orders.
"Which branch, sir?" he said.
"The largest," said the Colonel in a hollow voice; "it is the most
likely because it goes nearly straight. Forward then."
They obeyed in silence, and for another couple of hours they went on,
finding the gallery they had taken branch and branch again and again;
but though they sent shout after shout, there was no reply but those
given by the echoes, and they went on again, still leaving burning
candles at each division of the way.
Then all at once, as the Colonel was writing his directions on the
pocket-book leaf, Vores saw the pencil drop from his hand; the book
followed, and he reeled and would have fallen had not the miner caught
him and lowered him gently to the rocky floor.
"I knew it, I knew it," groaned Hardock. "He was dead beat when we got
back, for we've had an awful day. It's only been his spirit which has
kept him up. And now I'm dead beat, too, for I had to almost carry the
Major when we were nearly back. It's like killing him to rouse him to
go on again. Harry Vores, you're a man who can think and help when
one's in trouble. There's miles and miles of this place, and the more
we go on the more tangled up it gets. Which way are we going now:--
east, west, north, or south? Of course, nobody knows."
"What's that?" cried Vores, for a low deep murmur came upon their ears,
and was repeated time after time. "I know; water falling a long way
off. Then that's how it was so much had to be pumped out."
"Yes," said Hardock; "that's water, sure enough. I thought I heard it
this morning. But look here, what shall, we do--carry the Colonel
forward or go back?"
There was no reply; but the murmur, as of water falling heavily at a
great distance, came once more to their ears.