“Ay, Sir Edward, that was a failure. I didn’t hold it long enough. They had time to get away.”
Sir Edward and his son entered the murk, and had to feel their way, and halted.
“Light torches,” cried Mark: and half-a-dozen were lit and passed in, when once more the party advanced, expecting to be attacked, but the blast had produced a scare, though it had done no serious harm, save tearing down a few stones, and instead of attacking, the marauders stood on their defence in the place familiar to Mark and some of the men.
There was again the same bristling array of pikes in the opening; and after a renewed summons to surrender, the old miner proceeded coolly to prepare a second bag of powder.
This was fired, but the explosion did not take place till some time after the defenders of the cavern had retreated; and for a while the passage was so stifling with the fumes that it was impossible to go on, so the party had to draw back to allow them to be dissipated.
At last it was deemed prudent to proceed, and once more the advance was ordered, the men eagerly obeying; and with torches adding their smoke to that already hanging in the gloomy cracks and vaults, they pressed on till once more the way was blocked.
It was no array of spear-points in a narrow passage, but in this case the solid blocking of a wall of stone, built-up with care, the stones well wedged in, a narrow opening left for the retreat of the defenders having been filled up since their last retreat, and the wonder to those who examined it was that it had been so quickly secured.
The choice of position, though, had been well made, for the passage was not above four feet wide at this point, and the roof had sunk till it was in this particular spot only five in height.
Once more the powder was brought forward by Dummy, the bag laid close to the bottom stones, the fuse added, and lit, and the party retired to a safe distance, to wait until the powder had swept the barrier away.
The explosion was long in coming, and when it did, with a mighty roar, an hour had to be passed before another advance was made, but no farther than the wall, which was found apparently quite uninjured, though the powder had brought down a huge mass from the roof.