Sappers and Miners Part 5

"There's a good two hundred feet on it, and it's gone right down into the water," growled the man thoughtfully. "It's him playing tricks with us, arn't it?"

"Playing tricks! Who's mad now?" cried Joe. "Will you pull up that rope?"

For answer the man jerked it again and again, then pulled up a few fathoms, and let them drop again with a splash.

"Now, then, do you hear that?" he cried. "If yer don't ketch holt we'll haul it all up, and leave yer."

"Oh, Sam, Sam, Sam," cried Joe, "let me go down. Do you hear me? If you don't, I'll jump."

"Will you be quiet?" roared the man, fiercely. "You just stay where you are, or I'll tie yer neck and heels with the rope. Think I want to go back and say there's two on yer drownded. Stop where yer are."

"But we can't stand without doing something. Oh, Gwyn, Gwyn! How can I go and tell Mrs Pendarve what's happened?"

"And how can I?" cried the man, angrily. "What d'yer both mean, coming tempting on me to let yer down. What's the Colonel going to say to me?"

"Then you do think he's drowned?" cried Joe, piteously.

"Who's to help thinking he is?" said the man, gruffly, and he wiped the thick perspiration from his brow. "They all did say it was a onlucky mine, but I wouldn't believe 'em."

"Gwyn! Gwyn! Gwyn!" shouted Joe, as he leaned over the wall and gazed down, but there were only hollow reverberations in reply.

"It's no good, my lad," said Hardock, bitterly. "Who'd ha' thought of that rope failing as it did? Good sound rope as it be."

"But you are not going to give up, and do nothing?" cried Joe, frantically.

"What is us to do then?" said the man, with a groan. "Let me down, I tell you."

"Nay; it would be too bad, I won't do that."

"Then go down yourself."

"How? Can you hold me, and haul me up? That's madder still. He's gone, my lad, he's gone; and we can't do nothing to help him."

"Run, run for help. I'll stay here and hold the rope. He may be insensible and catch hold of it yet."

"Ay, he may," said the man, meaningly; "but folk don't do that sort o'

thing, my lad. Nay; it's o' no use to struggle over it. He's a dead and goner, and you and me's got to face it."

"Face it!" groaned Joe, letting his head go down on the top of the wall.

"Face it! How can I ever face Mrs Pendarve again?"

"Ah! and how can I face the Colonel, his father. I can't do it, my lad, Ydoll Churchtown's been a happy enough home for me, and I've allus made a living in it, but it's all over now. I must be off at once."

"To get help?" cried Joe, raising his ghastly face from where it rested upon the weathered stone, and looking more ghastly now from the blood which had started from a slight cut on his brow.

"Nay; I've done all I could do here for young Gwyn--all as a man can do.

I've got to take care o' myself now, and be off somewheres, for the Colonel'll put it all on to me."

"Go! Run away!" cried Joe. "Oh, you wouldn't be such a coward! Here, quick! try again.--Gwyn, old chap! The rope--the rope. Oh, do try and catch hold," he shouted down the pit.

But there was no reply; and wild now with frantic horror, the boy seized the rope and began to climb over the wall. "Ah! none o' that!" roared Hardock, grasping his arms; and now there was a desperate struggle which could only have the one result--the mastery of the boy. For at last Hardock lifted him from the ground and threw him on his back amongst the heath, and held him down.

"It's no good to fight, young 'un," he said breathlessly. "You're strong, but my muscles is hardest. I don't say nought again' you, though yer did hit me right in the mouth with your fist. I like it, for it shows your pluck, and that you'd do anything to try and save your mate. Lie still. It's of no use, yer know. I could hold down a couple of yer. There, steady. Can't yer see I should be letting yer go to your death, too, my lad, and have to hear what the Major said as well as the Colonel. Not as I should, for I should be off; and then it would mean prison, and they'd say I murdered you both, for there wouldn't be no witness on my trial, but the rope, and mebbe they'd give me that for my share, and hang me. There, will yer be quiet if I let yer sit up?"

"Yes, yes," said the boy, with a groan of despair.

"And yer see as I can't do nothing more, and you can't neither."

"I--I don't know, Sam," groaned the boy, as he lay weak and panting on his back in the purple-blossomed heath. "No, no, I can't see it. I must do something to try and save him."

"But yer can't, lad," said the man, bitterly. "There arn't nothing to be done. It's a gashly business; but it wouldn't make no better of it if I let you chuck yourself away, too. There, now you're getting sensible."

Joe lay with his eyes closed in the hot sunshine, glad of the darkness to shut out the horror of the scene around him; for the bright blue sky, with the soft-winged grey gulls floating round and round above their heads, and the far-spreading silver and sapphire sea, were dominated by the mouth of the horrible pit, from which with strained senses he kept on expecting to hear the faint cries of his companion for help.

But all was very still, save the soft, low hum of the bees busily probing the heath bells for honey in the beautiful, wild stretch of granite moorland, and the black darkness was for the unhappy boy alone.

For the knowledge was forced upon him that he could do no more. He felt that after the first minute Gwyn's position must have been hopeless, and he lay there perfectly still now in his despair, when Hardock rose slowly, and began to haul in the line, hand over hand, coiling it in rings the while, which rings lay there in the hot sunshine, dry enough till quite a hundred-and-fifty feet had been drawn on, and then it came up dripping wet fully fifty feet more, the mining captain drawing it tightly through his hands to get rid of the moisture.

"Bad job--bad job!" he groaned, "parted close to the end--close to the end--close to the end--well, I'll be hanged!"

He began in a low, muttering way, quite to himself, and ended with a loud e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n which made Joe sit up suddenly and stare.

"What is it?" he cried wildly. "Hear him?"

"Hear him? No, my lad, nor we aren't likely to. But look at that."

He held out the wet end of the rope, showing how it was neatly bound with copper-wire to keep it from fraying out and unlaying.

"Well," said Joe, "what is it?"

"Can't yer see, boy?"

"The rope's end? Yes."

"Can't yer see it aren't broke?"

"Yes, of course. Why, it did not part, Sam!" cried Joe, excitedly.

"Nay; it did not part."

"Then it came untied," cried Joe, frantically. "Oh, Sam!"

CHAPTER FOUR.

JOE HEARS A CRY.