Part 69 (1/2)

”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.”