"Well, if I didn't know that it was impossible, I should say that we
were listening to the waves breaking on the shore."
"It aren't impossible, sir, and that's what you're doing," said Hardock;
and the boys started as if to make for the foot of the shaft.
"What's the matter," said Hardock, chuckling. "'Fraid of its bursting
through?"
"I don't know--yes," said Gwyn. "What's to prevent it?"
"Solid rock overhead, sir. It's lasted long enough, so I don't see much
to fear."
"But it sounds so horrible," cried Joe, who suddenly found that the
gallery in which they were standing felt suffocatingly hot.
"Oh, it's nothing when you're used to it. There's other mines bein'
worked right under the sea. There's no danger so long as we don't cut a
hole through to let the water in; and we sha'n't do that."
"But how thick is the rock over our heads?"
"Can't say, sir, but thick enough."
"But is it just over our heads here?"
"Well, I should say it warn't, sir; but I can't quite tell, because it's
so deceiving. I've tried over and over to make it out, but one time it
sounds loudest along there, another time in one of the other galleries.
It's just as it happens. Sound's a very curious thing, as I've often
noticed down a mine, for I've listened to the men driving holes in the
rock to load for a blast, and it's quite wonderful how you hear it
sometimes in a gallery ever so far off, and how little when you're close
to. Come along. No fear of the water coming in, or I'd soon say let's
get to grass."
The boys did not feel much relieved, but they would not show their
anxiety, and followed the mining captain with the pulsation of their
hearts feeling a good deal heavier; and they went on for nearly an hour
before they reached the spot familiar to them, one which recalled the
difficulty they had had with Grip when he ran up the passage, and stood
barking at the end, as if eager to show them that it was a _cul-de-sac_.
Hardock went right to the end, and spent some time examining the place
before speaking.
Then he began to point out the marks made by picks, hammers, and
chisels, some of which were so high up that he declared that the miners
must have had short ladders or platforms.
"Ladders, I should say," he muttered; "and the mining must have been
stopped for some reason, because the lode aren't broken off. There's
plenty of ore up there if we wanted it, and maybe we shall some day, but
not just yet. There's enough to be got to make your fathers rich men
without going very far from the shaft foot; and all this shows me that
it must have been very, very long ago, when people only got out the
richest of the stuff, and left those who came after 'em to scrape all
the rest. There, I think that will do for to-day."
The boys thought so, too, though they left this part rather reluctantly,
for it was cooler, but the idea of going along through galleries which
extended beneath the sea was anything but reassuring.
That evening the Major came over to the cottage with his son, and the
long visit of the boys underground during the day formed one of the
topics chatted over, the Major seeming quite concerned.
"I had no idea of this," he said. "Highly dangerous. You had not been
told, Pendarve, of course."
"No," said the Colonel, smiling, "I had not been told; but I shrewdly
suspected that this was the case, especially after hearing the faint
murmuring sound in places."
"But we shall be having some catastrophe," cried the Major--"the water
breaking in."
The Colonel smiled.
"I don't think we need fear that. The galleries are all arch-roofed and
cut through the solid rock, and, as far as I have seen, there has not
been a single place where the curves have failed. If they have not
broken in from the pressure of the millions of tons of rock overhead,
why should they from the pressure of the water?"
"Oh, but a leak might commence from filtration, and gradually increase
in size," said the Major.
"Possibly, my dear boy," replied the Colonel; "but water works slowly
through stone, and for the next hundred years I don't think any leakage
could take place that we should not master with our pumping gear. Oh,
absurd! There is no danger. Just try and think out how long this mine
has been worked. I am quite ready to believe that it was left us by the
ancient Britons who supplied the Phoenicians."
"May be, we cannot tell," said the Major, warmly; "but you cannot deny
that we found the mine full of water."
"No, and I grant that if we leave it alone for a hundred years it will
be full again."
"From the sea?"
"No; from filtration through the rock. The water we pumped out was
fresh, not salt. There, my dear Jollivet, pray don't raise a bugbear
that might scare the men and make them nervous. They are bad enough
with what they fancy about goblins and evil spirits haunting the mine.
Even Hardock can't quite divest himself of the idea that there is danger
from gentry of that kind. Don't introduce water-sprites as well."
The subject dropped; but that night, impressed as they had been by what
they had heard, and partly from partaking too liberally of a late
supper, both Gwyn and Joe had dreams about the sea breaking into and
flooding the mine, Gwyn dreaming in addition that he behaved in a very
gallant way. For he seemed to find the hole through which the water
passed in, and stopped it by thrusting in his arm, which stuck fast,
and, try how he would, he could not extricate it, but stood there with
the water gradually stifling him, and preventing him from calling aloud
for help.
The heat and darkness at last rescued him from his perilous position--
that is to say, he awoke to find himself lying upon his back with his
face beneath the clothes; and these being thrown off, he saw that the
morning sunshine was flooding the bedroom, and the memory of the
troublous dream rapidly died away.