“To see! Well, there are the sides of a big well-like hole which you can see from here. Look!”
He threw open a trap-door, and I gazed into a well-like place with a couple of ropes hanging down it, and I noted that the walls were made of the stone that had been dug and broken out. The place looked dark and damp, and there was the trickling of dripping water. That was all.
“Well, Sep, what do you say?—will you go?”
“Is it all like this, father?” I said.
“Yes, precisely, my lad. Shall I have you let down?”
“No, thank you,” I said; “I think I’ll stop up.”
He nodded and smiled, and after staying with him for a time while he examined some of the ore that the man was breaking up he set me free, but not till I had asked him how many men he had at work, and been told that at present there were only six.