Then the party started off with their candles and the big lamp, first along by the tram line, after Sam Hardock had peered into a big, empty sumph, and then on and on, past where many men were busy chipping, hammering, and tamping the rock to force out masses of ore, while, before they had gone half-a-mile, there was a tremendous volley of echoes, which seemed as if they would never cease, and the party received what almost seemed a blow, so heavy was the concussion.
But neither Gwyn nor Joe started, and the dog, who had gone ahead, merely came trotting back to look at his master, and then bounded off again into the darkness, as if certain that there was a cat somewhere ahead which ought to be hunted out of the mine.
Familiarity had bred contempt; and fully aware that the noise was only the firing of a shot to dislodge some of the ore for shovelling into the iron skeps, they went on without a word.
They must have been a couple of miles from the shaft, every turn of the way being marked with a whitewash arrow, when Hardock stopped to trim his light, and his example was followed by his companions, the result of their halting being that Grip came trotting back out of the darkness to look up inquiringly, and then, satisfied with his examination, he bounded off again to find that imaginary cat. He soon came rushing back, though, on finding that he was not followed; for, after turning to give his companions a meaning nod, Hardock suddenly turned down a narrow opening which joined the gallery they were following at a sharp angle, and then went on, nearly doubling back over the ground they had traversed before. Then came a series of zigzags, and these were so confusing that at the end of a few hundred yards neither Gwyn nor Joe could have told the direction in which they were going.
“Never been here before, gen’lemen?” said Hardock, with a grin.
“No; this is quite fresh,” said Gwyn, consulting a pocket compass. “Leads west then.”
“Sometimes, sir; but it jiggers about all sorts of ways. Ah, there’s a deal of the mine yet that we haven’t seen.”
“Rises a little, too,” said Joe.
“Yes, sir; slopes up just a little—easy grajent, as the big engineers call it.”
“But you said it was natural, and not cut out by following a vein,” said Gwyn. “There are chisel-marks all along here.”