“No, thank you,” replied Denham. “I like fine nights, but I like to take care of my shins; and if I get star-gazing the lamp will be blown out, and we shall be going down one of those holes into the old gold-mine. There is one just in front—isn’t there?”
“Two,” I said; “but there are great stones laid across now.”
“Across the middle; but there’s plenty of room to go down on one side. Look! Here we are.”
He stopped and held the lamp down, its feeble rays showing that he was upon a broad stone laid across one of the old mine-shafts, one of those close by the ancient furnace we had discovered on our first visit. On this he now halted for a moment, partly from curiosity, partly to draw my attention to the danger.
“I should like to tie some of the horses’ reins together and have a decent lantern, so as to be let down to explore these places.”
“You couldn’t,” I said. “Don’t you remember when we threw a stone down this one it fell some distance and then went splash into the water?”
“It was the one farther on, not this one,” said Denham, bending lower.
“Well, you may depend upon it that there’d be no going far before coming to water.”
“Val!” cried my companion suddenly.
“What’s the matter?”