"Ahoy there! Sturgess! Are you hurt?"
"Hurt, sir? No."
"Then don't make that noise, man. Any one would think you were a child,
frightened at the dark."
"But where are you, sir?"
"Down here, of course."
"I thought you were killed, sir, and--and--"
"That you were left alone in the dark, man. There, wait till I get a
light."
Michael Sturgess muttered an oath, and leaned forward over the sharp
slope, as he wiped the great drops of fear-born perspiration from his
face. "Child, am I?" he muttered. "I'll let him see. Enough to scare
anybody--place like this."
He gazed downward as Reed, after a little manipulation of the damaged
lanthorn, struck a light, which gleamed out some sixty feet below. Then
the candle was relit, giving the man a faint glimpse of the
horrible-looking slope, and lastly Reed began to climb up, slowly
talking the while. "Of course it's an ugly-looking place," he said;
"these underground limestone caverns always are, but it's of no use to
lose your nerve at the first emergency."
There was a good-humoured contempt in the young engineer's tones which
enraged the big strong man above him as he stood looking down at the
light.
"Like to scare him!" he muttered, as Reed climbed higher, rested when
about half-way up, and raised the lanthorn above his head to gaze at the
rock face before him, as if seeking for a good hand or foot hold.
"I daresay this place goes down for far enough," he said, as he
continued his climb, and kept on talking as if to take his companion's
attention; "it would be interesting to try and plumb the depth."
"Shall I take the lanthorn?" said Sturgess, a minute or two later.
"No, thanks, I'll carry it," replied Reed, as he made his way to where
Sturgess stood. "I shall want to look at the walls here and there as we
go back. There! might have been worse. A bit scratched, and my clothes
a little torn. I will go back to the regular old workings now. There
has evidently never been anything done here."
"No, sir; what I told you. No good here."
"No good!" said Reed, with a laugh. "I think there's a great deal of
good."
"What, workable stuff, sir?" said the man sharply. "Perhaps; but what I
meant was this tremendous hole and the water. Why, Sturgess, man, it's
worth thousands."
"Don't see it, sir," said the man roughly.
"I do. A natural drainage of the mine. No expenditure for keeping the
workings dry."
"Oh, yes, that's right enough, sir," said the man, with a laugh, "if
you've got anything to work."
"I'm afraid Mr Sturgess and I will not get on together," said Reed to
himself, as he led the way on, examining the wall from time to time, and
now and then chipping off a piece for a specimen.
"If this cockney jockey's going to be over me," muttered Sturgess, "he's
got to be tough; but he don't know everything."
They reached the entrance to the grotto-like portion of the mine, where
Reed halted, took out a sandwich-box and flask, and began to refresh
himself, handing both to his companion first; and as Reed ate, he lifted
the lanthorn from time to time, and examined the neighbouring walls,
roof, and floor.
"All pretty well cleared out, sir," said Sturgess, with a grin.
"Yes--clean," replied Reed quietly; and soon after they resumed their
exploration, following the track of the old veins here and there through
an almost interminable maze of passages, and going farther and farther
into the depths of the mountain. But it was always the same, passage
after passage through the limestone, following the old lode of lead ore
which had been diligently quarried and picked out any time during,
probably, the past two thousand years, and there was no plan, no special
arrangement in driving the various tunnels. Where nature had run her
mineral in veins, there the old miners had followed; and, as Reed had
noticed before, there was scarcely a passage that had water lying about,
the drippings from the roof and cracks in the walls having worn for
themselves little channels, which found their way into others, and then
by degrees went to swell the fall by whose side he had stood some hours
before.
At last, with his bag growing heavy with specimens, and the supply of
candles getting less, and after the termination of the workings had been
found and examined in several places, Reed stopped.
"Back now," he said.
"Satisfied, sir?"
"Oh yes, for to-day. I shall follow the other leads, of course, till I
have well examined all, and mapped it out."
"And settled where you shall begin work, sir," said the man, with a
grin.
"Oh, I have settled that," replied Reed.
Sturgess stared.
"Been a lot of good stuff got out of here, sir, no doubt."
"Evidently."
"More than there ever will be again."
"That's more than we can say, Sturgess. Take the lanthorn now, and lead
on straight for the mouth. Good heavens! Why, it's five o'clock."
"Yes, sir, I thought it must be," said the man.
"Time goes when one is interested. There, have a cigar. Light up. We
have not done a bad's day work. Can you lead back pretty straight?"
"Oh yes, sir, I can manage that," said the man confidently; but he had
been trudging along, sending his and the young man's shadows grotesquely
dancing upon the roof for quite an hour and a half before the end of the
main artery of the mine was reached, with the sloping shaft up to the
daylight--"to grass," Sturgess termed it--but here there was no response
to their hails for nearly an hour, the men having gone.
"The scoundrels!" Reed cried at last. "Well, it's risky work, but we
can't stop down here. We must either go back into the mine, try for the
other shaft, which may be climbable, or you or I must go up that rope."
"Who's to climb a rope like that, sir?" growled Sturgess; "and how do we
know that the end's properly fastened?--There they are!"
For a faint murmur of voices was heard from far above, and now an answer
came to their hail, and a minute later a voice shouted--
"All right below?"
"Yes," cried Reed. "Get in the loop, my man.--Ahoy there! haul up."
The rope tightened and Sturgess was raised from his feet and went up
slowly, leaving Reed below in the darkness.
But it was all light to the young engineer, whose tired face shone with
joy and excitement.
"The blind cavern lizards," he said, half aloud. "I knew it. God bless
the old dad, what a brain he has! He'll be delighted with my report;
and Janet, my darling, you shall have a home that will be the envy of
all we know, and make the old Doctor proud of us. My darling!" he said
softly, as, with his eyes half closed, he raised up her fair young face
before him. "Hah! poor old Jessop, too. He must have a bit of the
luck. I'll tell the old man bygones must be bygones. We'll have a
clean slate. Jess isn't a bad fellow after all. I might have gone down
the wrong road a bit if it hadn't been for Janet. Hang it all! the love
of a dear sweet girl does keep a weak fellow straight."
He glanced down at his hands and tweed suit, daubed with limestone mud,
and showing a couple of tears in the stout cloth.
"Delightful party for a drawing-room, and--hullo! here's the loop."
He secured the rope, which came dangling down, felt that his specimens
and tools were safe, and then slipped the loop over his head, sat in it
as nonchalantly as if it had been a swing, uttered a loud "All right,"
and the next minute he was being steadily hauled up towards the surface.