It turned out as he expected, for there, upon a ledge of rock about fifty yards ahead, stood a Davy-lamp, shedding its soft dull rays around, so that some fell upon a wall of coal, which glistened in the light as if it had been newly cut.
“It is very strange,” thought Philip. “Why should anyone be at work here? It is dangerous, too. The old mine full of water must be close behind.”
“Well,” he said, “Davy-lamps are not at all ghost-like things, so let us see what it all means;” and going cautiously forward, with his own lamp hidden, he crept near enough to see that there was a heavy iron bar lying upon the flooring of the wide chamber, for the gallery had been opened out here, and beside it a heap of newly-chipped coal, the result of an effort evidently being made to bore through into the ancient pit.
“Why, it is treachery!” exclaimed Philip mentally. “Someone is trying to flood— Ah!”
A tremendous blow fell upon his head, and he dropped to the ground, motionless, stunned as it were in body; but with every faculty of his mind quickened, and, with his eyes half-closed, he saw a dark figure stride across him, a short iron bar in his hand, pick up the lamp and hold it down.
“Yes, I ar’n’t made no mistake, Muster Hex’on. I said I’d mak’ my mark on yo, and yo’ve got it this time. How came he here?”
The man stood in a listening attitude for a few moments, and then, apparently satisfied, raised his bar to strike again.
“That first un seems to hev done it,” he said with a coarse laugh. “Spying, that’s what he was about. Now I’ll give them a job.”
He set down the lamp once more upon the ledge, picked up the big bar, and began to drive it heavily in the hole he had made in the coal, the great bar going in quite three feet at each stroke, while Philip lay watching him, paralysed still in body, but seeing all that took place.
At the end of half-a-dozen strokes the bar seemed to go through farther, and as the great miner drew it back a little stream of dirty water came trickling through, and Parks stood watching it intently.