When at last the man stopped and Dick was dropped to the ground, they had travelled about a mile and a half into the bush. He heard the sound of timbers being moved, and presently was caught up again; after much fumbling and an oath or two from his companion the latter withdrew his support, and Dick felt himself to be dangling in the air from the rope that tied his limbs. Now the bandage was pulled from his eyes, and the boy, after staring about through the starlit night for a few moments, terrified and amazed, began to realise his position.
'Know where you are, me beauty?' asked the big man who stood before him, and who spoke as if with a pebble on his tongue.
Dick knew where he was. He was hanging over the open shaft of the Piper Mine, another of Waddy's abandoned claims, suspended from one of the skids by a stout rope.
'Look down,' commanded the man.
Dick obeyed and saw only the black yawning shaft. 'Know she's deep, don't yer? There's three hundred feet o' shaft below you there. That's the short road to hell. Now look here.'
He flashed the bright blade of a large knife before the eyes of his prisoner; then, seating himself on a broken truck near the shaft he began deliberately to sharpen the knife on his boot. The operation was not in the least hurried—the man was desirous of making a deep impression.
'There,' he said at length, 'that's beautiful. Feel!' He cut the skin of Dick's nose with a touch of the keen edge. 'Now, listen here. I'm goin' to take this bandage off yer mouth, 'cause I've a few perticular questions to ask an' you must answer 'em, but understand first that one little yell from you, an'—' He made a blood-curdling pretence of cutting at the rope above Dick's head. 'You'd go plug to the bottom an' be smashed to fifty bits!'
The man removed the gag and reseated himself on the old truck. As he talked he toyed with the ugly knife, making occasional passes on the side of his left boot resting on his knee.
'Look here, young feller,' he said, 'if you tell me lies down you go, understand? D'ye believe me?' he asked with sudden ferocity.
'Yes,' whispered Dick.