“Forward,” said the Colonel. “No, stop. We have plenty of candles, have we not?”
“Yes, sir, heaps,” was the reply.
“Light one, then, and stick it in a crevice of the rock here at the corner.”
While the man was busily executing the order, the Colonel took out his pocket-book, wrote largely on a leaf, “Gone in search of you. Wait till we return,” and tore it out to place it close to the candle where the light could shine on the white scrap of paper.
Then on they went again, with the experienced miners talking to one another in whispers, as with wondering eyes they took note of the value of the traces they kept on seeing in the rugged walls of the main gallery they traversed—tokens hardly heeded by the two boys in their anxiety to gain tidings of their fathers.
“It’s going to be a grand place, my son,” whispered Vores; “and only to think of it, for such a mine to have lain untouched ever since the time of our great-great-gaffers—great-great-great-great, ever so many great-gaffers, and nobody thinking it worth trying.”
“Ay, but there must have been some reason,” said the other.
“Bah! Old women’s tales about goblin sprites and things that live underground. We never saw anything uglier than ourselves, though, did we, all the years we worked in mines?”
“Nay, I never did,” said the man who walked beside Vores; “but still there’s no knowing what may be, my lad, and it seems better to hold one’s tongue when one’s going along in the dark in just such a place as strange things might be living in.”
Hardock stopped where another branch went off at a sharp angle, his experienced eyes accustomed to mines and dense darkness, making them plain directly; and here another shout was sent volleying down between the wet gleaming walls, to echo and vibrate in a way which sounded awful; but when the men shouted again the echoes died away into whispers, and then rose again more wildly, but only to die finally into silence.