“Yes; and now I think of it,” said Joe, eagerly, “we haven’t come through that hall-like place with the pillars all about.”
“Haven’t come to it yet, perhaps.”
Joe shook his head, and gave his companion a meaning look.
“It isn’t that,” he said. “We’ve come quite a different way.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter,” said Gwyn, so long as we get to the foot of the shaft; “and I shall be very glad, for, wet, tired, and hungry, it’s very horrible being here.”
They went on, led by the dog like two blind beggars Gwyn said, as he tried to look cheerfully upon their position, when he received another mental check, for Joe cried suddenly, “Stop a moment, for there’s something wrong with this candle;” and a shudder worse than that which had attacked the boy when the water first rose to his breast ran through his nerves.
Joe opened the door of the lanthorn with a jerk, and the candle, which had fallen over on one side and was smoking the glass, dropped out on to the rocky floor; but Gwyn stooped quickly and saved it from becoming extinct, while the dog uttered an impatient bark and dragged at the leash again.
And it was always so as they proceeded, that the boys’ strength, which had flickered up at the hope of rescue brought by the dog, rapidly burned down now like the candle, which quickly approached its end; while the dog seemed to be untiring and toiled and tugged away, as if trying to draw his master onward. They spoke less and less, and dragged their feet, and grew more helpless, till at the end of a couple of hours Joe suddenly said,—
“It’s of no use, Ydoll; I can go no farther, and he’s only taking us more into the mine. There isn’t a bit of it we’ve passed before.”
“Never mind; we must trust him now,” said Gwyn, sadly; “we can’t go back.”