“So long as you don’t let go,” was the reply from above him.
“Well, don’t you let go, or you’ll be knocking me off. I say, I wonder what the birds think of it all.”
“Don’t seem to mind it much,” replied Joe. “But I suppose we sha’n’t leave these ladders here when the mine-shaft is all right.”
“No, because we shall go along the adit, that way. Father says Sam Hardock wants the gallery widened a little, so that a tramway can be laid down, and then he’ll run trucks along it, and tilt all the rubbish into the sea.”
“Yes, young gentlemen, that’s the way,” said a voice below them. “So you’re coming down to have a look?”
“I say, Sam, you startled me,” cried Gwyn. “Well, how does the pump work?”
“Splendidly, sir; here’s a regular stream of water coming along, and running into the sea like a cascade, as they call it. Only ten more steps, sir. That’s it! Mind how you come there. None too much room. We must have a strong rail all round here, or there’ll be some accident. Two more steps, Mr Joe. That’s the way! Now then, sir, don’t this look business-like?”
The boys were standing now on the platform, whose struts were sloping to the rock below, and through an opening between them and the mouth of the adit the water came running out, bright and clear, to plunge down the face of the cliff in a volume, which promised well for draining the mine.
“Why, it won’t take long to empty the place at this rate,” cried Joe, as he knelt upon the platform and gazed down at the falling water, which dropped sheer for about twenty feet, then struck the rock, glanced off, and fell the rest of the way in a broken sheet of foam, which rapidly changed into a heavy rain.
“No, sir, it won’t take very long,” said Hardock. “A few weeks, I suppose; because, as it lowers, we shall have to put down fresh machinery to reach it, and so on, right to the sumph at the bottom.”