Why, what is this? The heart of a deep mine! A gold mine, with all its dim and rugged corridors, its tunnels and windings, lighted only by a dull taper here and there. There is no one at work, for it is Christmas Eve. Yet the underground region is not altogether untenanted. One man whose duty it is to watch the place, until relieved on the morrow, lies coiled up asleep in one of the long drives. He is a young man, not tall, but strongly made, and with limbs like another Hercules. On account of his great strength and a certain good temper combined, his mates call him, Samson the Nugget.
For what length of time the Nugget slumbered on this good Christmas Eve will never be known. Certain it is that he suddenly opened his eyes and beheld one of the biggest, and withal one of the ugliest, hulking fellows he had ever seen standing over him. The Nugget was a brave youth, but fear began to take possession of him as he looked at the intruder—a giant in stature, with a huge, flat head upon his shoulder, and a mouth as large, [[11]]and about the shape of the newspaper receiver at the General Post Office. He carried a lamp in his hand, but there was a queer sheen from his eyes, which illumined the cavern with a fiery glow. His dress was a brown russet, his hat, sugar-loaf in shape, and he carried a sapling for a cudgel.
“Get up, Samson the Nugget, and follow me,” said he in a brief, gruff tone.
“Who are you?” cried our hero, rising to his feet, and seizing a heavy iron drill.
“I am the strongest man in Golden Cloud, and my name is Grapple,” rejoined the other grimly. “Will you come?”
“Where?” said the Nugget. “There is no way out of this mine except by the cage up the shaft.”
“That’s all you know about it,” returned Grapple, with a grim laugh. “If I find a way, have you courage to follow?”
The Nugget felt inclined to refuse point blank, but curiosity being strong within him, he bowed an assent.
Grapple, without a word, turned on his heel and led the way further down the dark recesses of the tunnel. Our hero followed. Of one thing the miner felt certain—that the end of the drive would [[12]]effectually bar the progress of his unwelcome visitor. Strange to relate, such was not the case.
The narrow passage appeared to extend and widen out before their advance, until it took the shape of a long railway tunnel, from which the pair emerged at length into the bright beams of day. The transit from what seemed to be the bowels of a high mountain range to a landscape fairer and more beautiful than our hero had ever seen, filled his mind with wonder. His companion, now that daylight was upon him, did not seem such an ugly customer after all. He was certainly a huge, grotesque-looking personage, but there wasn’t a bit of malice in anything he said or did.