Part 53 (2/2)
”You shouted. What was it?”
”Enough to make me shout. Where are you?”
Guided by their voices, the lads approached till they were close together.
”Now what was it?” panted Joe, who was still trembling from the nervous alarm and shock.
”Give me your hand.”
Joe obeyed shrinkingly, and felt it pa.s.sed along the skirt of his companion's jacket.
”Feel it?”
”Yes, I feel something inside the lining. What is it--a box?”
”Yes, the matches. They got through the hole into the lining. Wait till I get them out.”
This was only achieved with the help of a knife.
”Ah!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the boy, as he at last dragged out the box, struck a match, and held it over his head to see where the candle-box had been laid; and then by quick manipulation he managed to get a wick well alight before the tiny deal splint was extinct.
In his excitement and delight, Joe clapped his hands as the candle was forced into the empty socket, and the lanthorn door closed.
”Oh, what a beautiful thing light is!” he cried.
”And what a horrible thing darkness, at a time like this! There, one feels better, and quite rested. Let's go on, and we may come to them at any time now.”
Joe said nothing, for fear of damping his companion's spirits; but he knew that they were not rested--that they would soon be forced to stop; and as he gazed right away before them, and tried to pierce the gloom beyond the circle of light shed by the candle, the hopeless nature of their quest forced itself upon him more and more.
But Gwyn's spirits seemed to be now unnaturally high, and as they went on following the narrowed tunnels, and pa.s.sing along such branches as seemed to be the most likely from their size, he held up the lanthorn to point out that the ore seemed to have been cut out for ten or twenty feet above their heads in a slanting direction. In another place he paused to look into a narrow pa.s.sage that seemed to have been only just commenced, for there was glittering ore at the end, and the marks of picks or hammers, looking as if they had been lately made.
”There's nothing to mind, Joe,” he said; ”only I do want to get back to the shaft now.”
”Then why not turn?”
”We did, ever so long ago. Don't you remember seeing that beginning of a pa.s.sage as we came along?”
”I remember stopping to look into two niches like this one but they were ever so far back, and we are still going on into the depths of the mine.”
”No, no; we took a turn off to the left soon after I lit the fresh candle, and we must be getting back towards the entrance.”
Joe said nothing, but he felt sure that he was right; and they went on again till at the end of another lane Gwyn stopped short.
”I say, I felt sure we were going back. Do you really believe that we are going farther in?”
”I felt sure that we were a little while ago, but I am not so sure now, for one gets confused.”
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