Sappers and Miners Part 69

"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 gra.s.s."

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 pa.s.sage, 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 sc.r.a.pe 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 rea.s.suring.

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 pa.s.sed 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.

CHAPTER FORTY THREE.

AFTER A LAPSE.

"That makes the fourth," said Colonel Pendarve, tossing a letter across to his son in the office one morning when the mine was in full work; "four proposals from Mr Dix, and I have had three at intervals from that other legal luminary, Brownson. Seven applications to buy the mine in two years, Gwyn. Yes, it will be two years next week since we began mining, and in those two years you and Joe Jollivet have grown to be almost men--quite men in some respects, though you don't shave yet."

"Yes, I do, father," said Gwyn, smiling.

"Humph!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the Colonel, "then it's an utter waste of time.

There, answer that letter and say emphatically No."

The Colonel left the office, and Gwyn read the letter.

"Look here, Joe," he said; and Joe Jollivet, who had climbed up to six feet in the past two years, slowly rose from his table at the other side of the office, unfolding himself, as it were, like a carpenter's double-hinged rule, and crossed to where Gwyn was seated with his table covered with correspondence.

Joe read the letter, and threw it back.

"Well," he said, "it's a pity they don't sell it; but it's the old story: father says 'No,' as he has started mining and it pays, he shall go on, so that I may succeed him."

"And Colonel Pendarve, ex-officer of cavalry and now half-proprietor of Ydoll Mine, says precisely the same on behalf of his fine, n.o.ble, handsome son Gwyn. Look here, Joe, why don't you drop it, and swell out the other way?"

"Going to begin that poor stuff again?" said Joe, sourly.

"You make me. I declare I believe you've grown another inch in the night. What a jolly old cuc.u.mber you are! You'll have to go on your knees next time you go down the mine."

"You answer your letter, and then I want to talk to you."

"What about?"

"I'll tell you directly you've written your letter. Get one piece of business out of your way at a time."

"Dear me; how methodical we are," said Gwyn; but he began writing his answer, while, instead of going back to his table, Joe crossed to the hearthrug, where Grip was lying curled up asleep, and bending down slowly he patted the dog's head and rubbed his ears, receiving an intelligent look in return, while the curly feathery tail rapped the rug.

"There you are, Mr Lawyer Dix, Esquire," said Gwyn, after dashing off the reply; "now, don't bother us any more, for we are not going to sell--Hi! Grip, old man, rabbits!"

The dog sprang to his feet uttered a sharp bark, and ran to the door before realising that it meant nothing; and then, without the sign of a limp, walked slowly back and lay down growling.

"Ha, ha!" laughed Gwyn; "says 'You're not going to humbug me again like that,' as plain as a dog can speak."

"Well, it's too bad," said Joe. "Think of the boy who cried 'wolf.'

Some day when you want him he won't come."

"Oh, yes, he will; Grip knows me. Come here, old man."