“I don’t know, my lad, I don’t know. If he is to be, it’ll want a lot o’ men with long ropes, and lanterns to courage ’em up; but it strikes me that when they know what’s happened, yer won’t find a man in Ydoll Cove as will risk going down. They all know about the horrors in the mine, and they won’t venter. I didn’t believe it, but I do now. There, the rope’s coiled up, and I may as well go.”
“To get help? Yes, go at once,” cried Joe, excitedly; “I’ll stay.”
“Nay, yer won’t, my lad. I’m not going to leave yer. I don’t want to know afterward as yer chucked yerself down that hole, despairing like. You’re going away with me.”
“I’m going to stay till help comes to get poor Gwyn out.”
Hardock shook his head.
“Go and tell them what’s happened.”
“I dursent,” said the man, with a shiver.
“You go at once.”
“What! and tell the Colonel his boy’s dead? That I won’t, my lad. He’d be ready to kill me.”
“Go to my father, and tell him. He’ll break the news to Colonel Pendarve; and you go on then to the village, to collect men and ropes.”