Sappers and Miners Part 74

"Ready?"

"Yes; I've told father I shall be late," said Joe.

"So have I, and my mother, too. Seen anything of Tom Dina.s.s? No?"

"But--oh, I say!"

"Well, say it," cried Gwyn.

"What about Grip?"

"Quite well, thank you for your kind inquiries, but he says he feels the cold a little in his legs."

"Don't fool," said Joe, testily. "You're not going to leave the dog?"

"Why not?"

"Tom Dina.s.s."

Gwyn whistled.

"Soon put that right," he said. "We'll take him with us. He'll enjoy the run."

There was no doubt about that, for the dog was frantic with delight, and as soon as he was unchained he raced before them to the mouth of the pit, as readily as if he understood where they were going.

Sam Hardock was waiting, and he rubbed his nose on seeing the dog.

"I did advise you, sir, to keep him chained up while there's danger about," he grumbled.

"Won't be any danger down below, Sam," said Gwyn cheerily.

"What? Eh? You mean to take him with us? Oh, I see. But won't he get chopped going down?"

"Not if I carry him."

"Nay, sir," said the man, seriously, "you mustn't venture on that."

"Well, I'm going to take him down," said Gwyn.

"I know," said Joe, eagerly; "send him down in the skep."

"Ay, ye might do that, sir," said Hardock, nodding. "Would he stop, sir?"

"If I tell him," said Gwyn; and, an empty skep being hooked on just then, the engineer grinned as Gwyn went to it and bade the dog jump in.

Grip obeyed on the instant, and then, as his master did not follow, he whined, and made as if to leap out.

"Lie down, sir. Going down. Wait for us at the bottom."

The dog couched, and the engineer asked if he'd stay.

"Oh, yes, he'll stay," said Gwyn. Then, obeying a sudden impulse, he took his basket, and placed it beside the dog at the bottom of the iron skep. "Watch it, Grip!" he cried, and the dog growled. "He wouldn't leave that."

"Till every morsel's devoured," said Joe. Then click went the break, a bell rang, and the skep descended, while the little party stepped one by one on to the man-engine, and began to descend by jumps and steps off, lower and lower, till in due time the bottom was reached, where Grip sat watching the basket just inside the great archway, the skep he had descended in having been placed on wheels, and run off into the depths of the mine, while a full one had taken its place and gone up.

Then the party started off with their candles and the big lamp, first along by the tram line, after Sam Hardock had peered into a big, empty sumph, and then on and on, past where many men were busy chipping, hammering, and tamping the rock to force out ma.s.ses of ore, while, before they had gone half-a-mile, there was a tremendous volley of echoes, which seemed as if they would never cease, and the party received what almost seemed a blow, so heavy was the concussion.

But neither Gwyn nor Joe started, and the dog, who had gone ahead, merely came trotting back to look at his master, and then bounded off again into the darkness, as if certain that there was a cat somewhere ahead which ought to be hunted out of the mine.

Familiarity had bred contempt; and fully aware that the noise was only the firing of a shot to dislodge some of the ore for shovelling into the iron skeps, they went on without a word.

They must have been a couple of miles from the shaft, every turn of the way being marked with a whitewash arrow, when Hardock stopped to trim his light, and his example was followed by his companions, the result of their halting being that Grip came trotting back out of the darkness to look up inquiringly, and then, satisfied with his examination, he bounded off again to find that imaginary cat. He soon came rushing back, though, on finding that he was not followed; for, after turning to give his companions a meaning nod, Hardock suddenly turned down a narrow opening which joined the gallery they were following at a sharp angle, and then went on, nearly doubling back over the ground they had traversed before. Then came a series of zigzags, and these were so confusing that at the end of a few hundred yards neither Gwyn nor Joe could have told the direction in which they were going.

"Never been here before, gen'lemen?" said Hardock, with a grin.

"No; this is quite fresh," said Gwyn, consulting a pocket compa.s.s.

"Leads west then."

"Sometimes, sir; but it jiggers about all sorts of ways. Ah, there's a deal of the mine yet that we haven't seen."

"Rises a little, too," said Joe.

"Yes, sir; slopes up just a little--easy grajent, as the big engineers call it."

"But you said it was natural, and not cut out by following a vein," said Gwyn. "There are chisel-marks all along here."

"Hav'n't got to the place I mean yet, sir. Good half-mile on."

"And farther from the shaft?"

"Well, no, sir, because it bears away to the right, and I've found a road round to beyond that big centre place with the bits that support the roof."

"Well, go on then," said Gwyn; "one gets tired of always going along these pa.s.sages."

"Oughtn't to, sir, with all these signs of branches of tin lode--I don't."

"But one can have too much tin, Sam," said Joe, laughing; and they went steadily on along the narrow pa.s.sage, which grew more straight, till there was only just room for them to walk in single file.

"Been getting thin here, gen'lemen," said Hardock; "sign the ore was getting to an end. Look, there's where it branched off, and there, and there, going off to nothing like the roots of a tree. Now, just about a hundred yards farther, and you'll see a difference."

But it proved to be quite three hundred, and the way had grown painfully narrow and stiflingly hot; when all at once Grip began to bark loudly, and the noise, instead of sounding smothered and dull, echoed as if he were in a s.p.a.cious place.

So it proved, for the narrow pa.s.sage suddenly ceased and the party stepped out into a wide chasm, whose walls and roof were invisible, and the air felt comparatively cool and pleasant.

"There you are, Mr Gwyn, sir," said Hardock, as he stood holding up his light, but vainly, for it showed nothing beyond the halo which it shed.

"I call this a bit o' nature, sir. You won't find any marks on the walls here."

"I can't even see the walls," said Joe. "Here, Grip, where are you?"