There was no wonder felt now that those who had gone down first should have lost themselves.
“Wonder to me is, Mr Gwyn,” said Hardock one day, “that we any on us come up again alive.”
So they kept on exploring, and, well furnished with lights, the lads found the great hall with its pillars of quartz veined with tin, and strange passages going in different directions, far less horrible now. There was the gallery which dipped down too, one which they found their way to now from both ends. It looked gloomy and strange, with the whispering sounds of falling water and the reflections from the candles on the shining black surface; but knowledge had robbed it of its horrors.
“Go through it again?” said Gwyn, as they stood looking along it; “to be sure I would, only I don’t want to get wet through for nothing. When we did wade through, Sam, one was always expecting to put one’s foot in a shaft or in a well, and go down, never to come up again.”
“Ay, that would make you feel squirmy, sir.”
“It did,” said Gwyn, laughing. “But, I say, wasn’t Grip a splendid old fellow? and how he knew! Fancy his swimming right along here!”
“Ay, he is a dog,” said Sam. “How is he, sir?”
“Oh, he’ll soon be out again; but father wants to keep him chained up till his bones are properly grown together.”
“He’ll have to run dot and go one, I suppose, sir?”
“What, lame?” cried Gwyn. “Very little, I think. We can’t tell yet, because his legs are stiff with so much bandaging. I say, Sam, you fall down the shaft and break your legs, and we’ll put ’em in plaster for you.”