Hardock groaned as he rose and took the paper, staggering as he stooped again to place it by the candle. But he recovered his steadiness again directly, and looked, to the Colonel for orders.
“Which branch, sir?” he said.
“The largest,” said the Colonel in a hollow voice; “it is the most likely because it goes nearly straight. Forward then.”
They obeyed in silence, and for another couple of hours they went on, finding the gallery they had taken branch and branch again and again; but though they sent shout after shout, there was no reply but those given by the echoes, and they went on again, still leaving burning candles at each division of the way.
Then all at once, as the Colonel was writing his directions on the pocket-book leaf, Vores saw the pencil drop from his hand; the book followed, and he reeled and would have fallen had not the miner caught him and lowered him gently to the rocky floor.
“I knew it, I knew it,” groaned Hardock. “He was dead beat when we got back, for we’ve had an awful day. It’s only been his spirit which has kept him up. And now I’m dead beat, too, for I had to almost carry the Major when we were nearly back. It’s like killing him to rouse him to go on again. Harry Vores, you’re a man who can think and help when one’s in trouble. There’s miles and miles of this place, and the more we go on the more tangled up it gets. Which way are we going now:— east, west, north, or south? Of course, nobody knows.”
“What’s that?” cried Vores, for a low deep murmur came upon their ears, and was repeated time after time. “I know; water falling a long way off. Then that’s how it was so much had to be pumped out.”
“Yes,” said Hardock; “that’s water, sure enough. I thought I heard it this morning. But look here, what shall, we do—carry the Colonel forward or go back?”
There was no reply; but the murmur, as of water falling heavily at a great distance, came once more to their ears.