Sappers and Miners Part 54

"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 pa.s.sages 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 sh.e.l.ls beneath one's feet, and there's quant.i.ties 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 pa.s.sages, 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 pa.s.sages 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 pa.s.sages 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 pa.s.sage, 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."

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

A NOVEL NIGHTMARE.

From that hour they both "gave it up"--in other words, resigned themselves in a hopeless weary way to their fate, and went on in an automatic fashion, resting, tramping on again over patches of sand and clean hard places where the rock had been worn smooth. The pangs of hunger attacked them more and more, and then came maddening thirst which they a.s.suaged by drinking from one of the clear pools lying in depressions, the water tasting sweet and pure. From time to time the candles were renewed in the lanthorn, and the rate at which they burned was marked with feverish earnestness; and at last, in their dread of a serious calamity, it was arranged that one should watch while the other slept. In this way they would be sure of not being missed by a body of searchers who might come by and, hearing no sound, pa.s.s in ignorance of their position.

Gwyn kept the first watch, Joe having completely broken down and begun to reel from side to side of the pa.s.sage they were struggling along in a hopeless way; and when Gwyn caught his arm to save him from falling, he turned and smiled at him feebly.

"Legs won't go any longer," he said gently; and, sinking upon his knees, he lay down on the bare rock, placed his hand under his face as he uttered a low sigh, and Gwyn said quietly,--

"That's right; have a nap, and then we'll go on again."

There was no reply, and Gwyn bent over him and held the lanthorn to his face.

"How soon anyone goes to sleep!" he said softly. "Seems to be all in a moment."

The boy stood looking down at his companion for a few moments, and then turned with the light to inspect their position.

They were in a curve of one of the galleries formed by the extraction of the veins of tin ore, and there was little to see but the ruddy-tinted walls, sparkling roof, and dusty floor. A faint dripping noise showed him where water was falling from the roof, and in the rock a basin of some inches in depth was worn, from which he refreshed himself, and then felt better as he walked on for a hundred yards in a feeble, weary way, to find that which gave him a little hope, for the gallery suddenly began to run upward, and came to an end.

"But it may only be the end of this part," muttered Gwyn; "there are others which go on I suppose, but one can't get any farther here, and that's something."

He walked back to where Joe lay sleeping heavily, after convincing himself of the reason why the turning had come to an end where it did, for the vein had run upward, gradually growing thinner till, at some thirty feet up, as far as he could make out by his dim light, the men had ceased working, probably from the supply not being worth their trouble.

Joe was muttering in his sleep when Gwyn reached his side, but for a time his words were unintelligible. Then quite plainly he said,--

"Be good for you, father. The mine will give you something to do, and then you won't have time to think so much of your old wounds."

"And if he has got out safely and they never find us, this will be like a new wound for the poor old Major to think about," mused Gwyn. "How dreadful it is, and how helpless we seem! It's always the same; gallery after gallery, just alike, and that's why it's so puzzling. I wonder whether any of the old miners were ever lost here and starved to death."

The thought was so horribly suggestive that the perspiration came out in great drops on the boy's face, and he glanced quickly to right and left, even holding up his lanthorn, fancying for the moment that he might catch sight of some dried-up traces of the poor unfortunates who had struggled on for days, as they had, and then sunk down to rise no more.

"How horrible!" he muttered; "and how can Joe lie there sleeping, when perhaps our fate may be like theirs?"

But he had unconsciously started another train of thought which set him calculating, and took his attention from the imaginary horrors which had troubled him.

"Wandered about for days and days," he mused. "It seems like it, but that's impossible. It can't be much more than one, or we couldn't have kept on. We should have been starved to death. We couldn't have lived on water."

He wiped his wet brow, and it seemed to him that the gallery they were in was not so stifling and hot, unless it was that he had grown weaker.

Still one thing was certain; he could breathe more freely.

"Getting used to it," he thought; and, putting down the lanthorn, he seated himself with his back close to the wall.

Joe slept heavily, and the lad looked at him enviously.

"I couldn't sleep so peaceably as that," he said half aloud. "How can a fellow sleep when he doesn't know but what his father may be dying close by from starvation and weakness. It seems too bad."

Gwyn opened the lanthorn and found that the candle was half burned down, and for a moment he thought of setting up another in its place, for fear he should go to sleep and it should burn out.

"Be such a pity," he said, "we don't want light while we're asleep; only to wake up here in this horrible place is enough to drive anybody mad."

Then he closed the lanthorn again.

"I sha'n't go to sleep," he muttered. "In too much trouble." And he began thinking in a sore, dreary way of his mother seated at home waiting for news of his father and of him.

"It'll nearly kill her," he said. "But she'll like it for me to have come here in search of poor dad. It would have been so cowardly if I hadn't come, and she would have felt ashamed of me. Yes, she'll like my dying like this."

He paused, for his thoughts made him ponder.

"We can't be going to die," he said to himself, "or we shouldn't be taking it all so easily and be so quiet and calm. If we felt that we really were going to die, we should be half mad with horror, and run shrieking about till we dropped in a fit. No," he said softly, "it isn't like that. People on board ship, when they know it's going to sink, all behave quite calmly and patiently. There was that ship that was being burned with the soldiers on board. They all stood up before their officers, waiting for the end, and went down at last like men.

But I don't feel despairing like, and as if we were going to die."

Then he began to think of his peaceful home life, and of the days at school till about a year ago, when he had come home to study military matters with his father and Major Jollivet, prior to being sent to one of the military colleges in about a year's time.

"And now this mining has altered everything," mused Gwyn, "and--"

He started violently, sprang up, and looked about him, for his name had been uttered loudly close to his ear.