'I must do my duty; you remain behind!' decided Arwed. Meantime the windlass had commenced its revolutions, and the prisoners had disappeared in the dark and yawning gulf.
'He is gone!' moaned Christine. 'Thou hast done thy duty, barbarian; now will I do mine!'
She took the suckling from her breast, and placed it in Arwed's arms. 'Be its father!' she cried, springing to the shaft.
'Back! the tubs have already descended!' shrieked a miner, whilst Arwed hastened after her to hold her back.
'In God's name!' she exclaimed, and, grasping with both hands the tub-rope which hung suspended in the abyss, and boldly swinging herself over the shaft, she descended with frightful rapidity, and in a moment was lost to view.
'Holy God!' cried Arwed in amazement, staring with stupefaction into the horrible deep.
'She will never reach the bottom alive,' cried one of the miners at the windlass: 'God have mercy on her soul!'
Arwed had handed over the child to one of the miners' wives, and availed himself of the first tub which again came up, to descend into the pit for the purpose of looking after the unhappy mother, and doing every thing in his power for her welfare. The brave youth felt a slight shudder, when, by the celerity of his movement, the black, rocky walls around him, as if raised by some magic power, appeared to fly up into the air so swiftly as soon to shut out the light of day from the entrance, which appeared like a distant star shining down upon him; and, as his eyes gradually became accustomed to the obscurity, the terrors of the subterranean world became more and more distinctly and fearfully perceptible. Nothing was to be seen around him but dark gray rocks in gigantic masses, and occasionally caves and depths so immeasurable that they appeared to open into endless space. In singular contrast with the death-like appearance of all nature in these immense regions, appeared the active and busy movements of living men, who cheerfully labored to rend by force from old mother earth, that which she has so carefully hidden, and so pertinaciously withholds, from the curiosity and avarice of her children. There, upon an isolated group of projecting rocks, were the begrimmed miners, with their mining lamps, appearing in the far distance like so many fire-flies, assiduously digging with mallets and drills into the iron walls, for the purpose of gaining, in the least dangerous, though most tedious manner, the useful metal, which others then removed in troughs, baskets and handbarrows, and finally conveyed to the regions of day. Here, large fires were burning under the overhanging rocks, for the purpose of softening the hard stone by their heat, until they could be detached by their iron crow-bars. Upon slender rafters, supported by inserting their ends into the fissures of the rocks over unfathomable abysses, solitary individuals were composedly boring holes in the rocks for the purpose of blasting them; and near and far to a great distance, the darkness was illuminated by explosions which re-echoed through the natural arches of the pit like a subterranean battery of cannon.
'A true earthly hell!' said Arwed, while going down, 'furnished with all the terrors and torments which mortals can suffer without quickly succumbing. How can Christine prefer servitude in this eternal night to freedom in the blessed light of day? But indeed love will endure all things.'
The tub landed at the bottom of the shaft, Arwed stepped from it, and immediately perceived, by the light of a torch, the poor Christine lying exhausted upon the ground in a recess in one side of the pit. Mac Donalbain was standing by her in silent despair, and the clergyman of the mines was bandaging the bleeding hands of the suffering woman, from which the cord had torn the flesh as it slipped through them.