“Hav’n’t got to the place I mean yet, sir. Good half-mile on.”
“And farther from the shaft?”
“Well, no, sir, because it bears away to the right, and I’ve found a road round to beyond that big centre place with the bits that support the roof.”
“Well, go on then,” said Gwyn; “one gets tired of always going along these passages.”
“Oughtn’t to, sir, with all these signs of branches of tin lode—I don’t.”
“But one can have too much tin, Sam,” said Joe, laughing; and they went steadily on along the narrow passage, which grew more straight, till there was only just room for them to walk in single file.
“Been getting thin here, gen’lemen,” said Hardock; “sign the ore was getting to an end. Look, there’s where it branched off, and there, and there, going off to nothing like the roots of a tree. Now, just about a hundred yards farther, and you’ll see a difference.”
But it proved to be quite three hundred, and the way had grown painfully narrow and stiflingly hot; when all at once Grip began to bark loudly, and the noise, instead of sounding smothered and dull, echoed as if he were in a spacious place.
So it proved, for the narrow passage suddenly ceased and the party stepped out into a wide chasm, whose walls and roof were invisible, and the air felt comparatively cool and pleasant.
“There you are, Mr Gwyn, sir,” said Hardock, as he stood holding up his light, but vainly, for it showed nothing beyond the halo which it shed. “I call this a bit o’ nature, sir. You won’t find any marks on the walls here.”