Sappers and Miners Part 68

"Shall we go down?" said Joe, in a whisper.

"And break our necks? No, thank you. There, come back, he has only gone to set a line for conger."

"Hist!" whispered Joe, for at that moment, plainly heard, there came up to where they stood a peculiar thumping sound, as of a mason working with a tamping-iron upon stone.

"Now," whispered Joe. "What does he mean by that?"

CHAPTER FORTY TWO.

MINING MATTERS.

The boys stayed there some time listening to the clinking sound, and then, feeling obliged to go, they hurried away.

"Tell you what," said Gwyn, as they parted at last, "we'll wait till he has gone down the mine to-morrow morning, and then either go by the cliff or round by the cove head, and see what he has been about. I say it's a conger-line, and we may find one on."

"Perhaps so," said Joe, thoughtfully. "Ydoll, old chap, I don't like Tom Dina.s.s."

"Nor I, neither. But what's the matter now?"

"I'm afraid he broke poor Grip's legs."

"What? Nonsense! He wouldn't be such a brute. No man would."

"Well, I hope not; but I can't help thinking sometimes that he did. You see, the smelting-house door might have swung-to and shut him in with Dina.s.s and he might have flown at him, and Dina.s.s might have struck at him with one of the stoking-irons and broken his legs, and then been afraid and thrown him down the mine."

"And pigs might fly, but they're very unlikely birds."

"Well, we shall see," said Joe; and he hurried home to find his father asleep, while Gwyn, before going in, went on tiptoe to the vinery and crept in, to hear the dog snoring. Satisfied with this, he walked round the house fully prepared to receive a scolding for being so long, and feeling disposed to take refuge in the excuse that he had been to see the dog; but no lights were visible, everyone having retired to rest, the leaving of doors unfastened not being considered a matter of much moment at that secluded place.

So Gwyn crept to bed unheard, and had no need to make a shuffling excuse, and slept late the next morning, to find at breakfast time his father had been out to the dog.

"How is he? Oh, better than I expected to find him? He is not disposed to eat, only to sleep--and the best thing for him. The bandages are as hard as stone. Storm coming, I think, my dear."

"We must not complain," said Mrs Pendarve. "We have had lovely weather."

"I don't complain, and should not unless the waves washed up into the mine, and gave us a week's pumping; but we should want monsters for that."

The Colonel was right, for there was nearly a month's bad weather, during which the waves came thundering in all along the coast, and no fis.h.i.+ng-boats went out; and as no opportunity occurred for getting down to the point, which was a wild chaos of foam, the strange behaviour of Tom Dina.s.s was forgotten.

There were busy days, too, in the mine, stolen from those pa.s.sed in superintending the tremendous output of tin ore. The men worked below and above, and the Colonel and Major shook hands as they congratulated themselves upon their adventure, it being evident now that a year of such prosperity would nearly, if not quite, recoup them for their outlay in machinery, they having started without the terribly expensive task of sinking the mine through the rock. All that they had had to do was to pump out the first excavation, and then begin raising rich tin ore for crus.h.i.+ng, was.h.i.+ng, and smelting.

The stolen days were devoted to making explorations and mapping out the mine. There were no more goings astray, for gallery after gallery was marked in paint or whitewash with arrows, so that by degrees most of the intricacies, which formed a gigantic network, were followed and marked, and in these explorations abundant proof was given of the enormous wealth waiting to be quarried out.

There was no wonder felt now that those who had gone down first should have lost themselves.

"Wonder to me is, Mr Gwyn," said Hardock one day, "that we any on us come up again alive."

So they kept on exploring, and, well furnished with lights, the lads found the great hall with its pillars of quartz veined with tin, and strange pa.s.sages going in different directions, far less horrible now.

There was the gallery which dipped down too, one which they found their way to now from both ends. It looked gloomy and strange, with the whispering sounds of falling water and the reflections from the candles on the s.h.i.+ning black surface; but knowledge had robbed it of its horrors.

"Go through it again?" said Gwyn, as they stood looking along it; "to be sure I would, only I don't want to get wet through for nothing. When we did wade through, Sam, one was always expecting to put one's foot in a shaft or in a well, and go down, never to come up again."

"Ay, that would make you feel squirmy, sir."

"It did," said Gwyn, laughing. "But, I say, wasn't Grip a splendid old fellow? and how he knew! Fancy his swimming right along here!"

"Ay, he is a dog," said Sam. "How is he, sir?"

"Oh, he'll soon be out again; but father wants to keep him chained up till his bones are properly grown together."

"He'll have to run dot and go one, I suppose, sir?"

"What, lame?" cried Gwyn. "Very little, I think. We can't tell yet, because his legs are stiff with so much bandaging. I say, Sam, you fall down the shaft and break your legs, and we'll put 'em in plaster for you."

"No thank ye, sir," said the man, grinning, as he stopped to snuff his candle with Nature's own snuffers. "I never had no taste for breaking bones. Now, then, we'll go round by a bit I come to one day, if you don't mind a long walk back. Take us another two hours, but the floor's even, and I want to have a look at it."

"What sort of a place is it?" said Gwyn; "anything worth seeing?"

"Not much to see, sir, only it's one of the spots where the old miners left off after going along to the west. Strikes me it's quite the end that way. And I want to make sure that we've found one end of the old pit."

"Does the place seem worn out?" said Joe, who had been listening in silence.

"That's it, sir. Lode seems to have grown a bit narrower, and run up edge-wise like."

"Why, we went there," said Joe, eagerly. "Don't you remember, Ydoll?"

"Yes, I remember now. I'd forgotten it, though. I say! Hark; you can hear quite a murmuring if you put your ear against the wall."

"Yes, sir, you can hear it plainly enough in several places."

"Don't you remember, Ydoll, how we heard it when we were wet?"

"Now you talk about it, I do, of course," said Gwyn; "but, somehow, being down here as we were, I seemed to be stunned, and it has always been hard work to recollect all we went through. I'd forgotten lots of these galleries and pools and roofs, just as one forgets a dream, while, going through them again, they all seem to come back fresh and I know them as well as can be. But what makes this faint rumbling, Sam? Is it one of the little trucks rumbling along in the distance?"

"No, sir," said Hardock, with a chuckle. "What do you say it is, Master Joe?"

The lad listened in silence for a few moments, and then said slowly,--

"Well, if I didn't know that it was impossible, I should say that we were listening to the waves breaking on the sh.o.r.e."

"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."