There came a dull sound out of the darkness, as if Joe had struck
against the wall of the mine; but he gave vent to no exclamation, and
Gwyn cried to him to stop.
"Where are you? Don't run off like that, Joe!--Joe! Where are you?"
"Here," said the lad, hoarsely. "What is it? What has hurt you?"
"Hurt me? I thought something had hurt you. What made you rush off?"
"You shouted. What was it?"
"Enough to make me shout. Where are you?"
Guided by their voices, the lads approached till they were close
together.
"Now what was it?" panted Joe, who was still trembling from the nervous
alarm and shock.
"Give me your hand."
Joe obeyed shrinkingly, and felt it passed along the skirt of his
companion's jacket.
"Feel it?"
"Yes, I feel something inside the lining. What is it--a box?"
"Yes, the matches. They got through the hole into the lining. Wait
till I get them out."
This was only achieved with the help of a knife.
"Ah!" ejaculated the boy, as he at last dragged out the box, struck a
match, and held it over his head to see where the candle-box had been
laid; and then by quick manipulation he managed to get a wick well
alight before the tiny deal splint was extinct.
In his excitement and delight, Joe clapped his hands as the candle was
forced into the empty socket, and the lanthorn door closed.
"Oh, what a beautiful thing light is!" he cried.
"And what a horrible thing darkness, at a time like this! There, one
feels better, and quite rested. Let's go on, and we may come to them at
any time now."
Joe said nothing, for fear of damping his companion's spirits; but he
knew that they were not rested--that they would soon be forced to stop;
and as he gazed right away before them, and tried to pierce the gloom
beyond the circle of light shed by the candle, the hopeless nature of
their quest forced itself upon him more and more.
But Gwyn's spirits seemed to be now unnaturally high, and as they went
on following the narrowed tunnels, and passing along such branches as
seemed to be the most likely from their size, he held up the lanthorn to
point out that the ore seemed to have been cut out for ten or twenty
feet above their heads in a slanting direction. In another place he
paused to look into a narrow passage that seemed to have been only just
commenced, for there was glittering ore at the end, and the marks of
picks or hammers, looking as if they had been lately made.
"There's nothing to mind, Joe," he said; "only I do want to get back to
the shaft now."
"Then why not turn?"
"We did, ever so long ago. Don't you remember seeing that beginning of
a passage as we came along?"
"I remember stopping to look into two niches like this one but they were
ever so far back, and we are still going on into the depths of the
mine."
"No, no; we took a turn off to the left soon after I lit the fresh
candle, and we must be getting back towards the entrance."
Joe said nothing, but he felt sure that he was right; and they went on
again till at the end of another lane Gwyn stopped short.
"I say, I felt sure we were going back. Do you really believe that we
are going farther in?"
"I felt sure that we were a little while ago, but I am not so sure now,
for one gets confused."
"Yes, confused," said Gwyn, sadly. "We seem to have been constantly
following turnings leading in all directions, and they're all alike, and
go on and on. Aren't you getting tired?"
"Horribly; but we mustn't think of that. Let's notice what we see, so
as to have something to tell them when we get home."
"Well, that's soon done; the walls are nearly all alike, and the
passages run in veins, one of which the people who used to work here
followed until they had got out all the ore, and then they opened
others."
"But the ore seems to be richer in some places than in others."
"Yes, and the walls seem wetter in some places than in others; and
sometimes one crushes shells beneath one's feet, and there's quantities
of sand."
"But how far should you think we are now from the entrance?"
"I don't know. Miles and miles."
"Oh, that's exaggeration, for we've come along so slowly; and being
tired makes you feel that it is a long way."
They went on and on, at last, as if in a dream, following the winding
and zigzagging passages, and speaking more and more seldom, till at last
they found themselves in a place which they certainly had not seen
before, for the mine suddenly opened out into a wide irregular hall,
supported here and there by rugged pillars left by the miners; and now
confusion grew doubly confused, for, as they went slowly around over the
rugged, well-worn floor, and in and out among the pillars, they could
dimly see that passages and shafts went from all sides. The roof
sparkled as the light was held up, and they could note that in places
the marks of the miners' picks and hammers still remained.
Roughly speaking, the place was about a hundred feet across, and the
floor in the centre was piled up into a hillock, as if the ore that had
been brought from the passages around had been thrown in a heap--for
that it was ore, and apparently rich in quality, they were now learned
enough in metallurgy to know.
Gwyn had a fancy that, this being a central position, if the party they
sought were still in the mine they would be somewhere here; and he made
Joe start by hailing loudly, but raised so strange a volley of echoes
that he refrained from repeating his cry, preferring to wait and listen
for the answer which did not come.
"It's of no use," he said; "let's turn back; they must have got out by
now."
"Yes, I hope so; but what an awfully big place it is. I say, though,
where was it we came in--by that passage, wasn't it?"
Gwyn looked in the direction pointed out, but felt certain that it was
not correct. At the same time, though, he fully realised that he was
quite at fault, for at least a dozen of the low tunnels opened upon this
rugged, pillared hall, so exactly alike, and they had wandered about so
much since they entered, and began to thread their way in and out among
the pillars, that he stared blankly at Joe in his weariness, and
muttered despairingly,--
"I give it up."