“That’ll give a fellow strength,” he muttered, when he had done. “Now let’s see what’s what? Ugh! it’s a gashly job; but a hundred pound’s a big lump, and it may be a hundred and fifty.”
He took out a box of matches, lit a lantern, and walked cautiously towards the foot of the shaft, to find that the cage had been lowered down since the men went up—Pengelly with the last batch; and from that he argued that his confederate was on the watch.
To make sure he uttered a low whistle, which went up, seeming to increase as it rose, and an answer came back.
“That’s right,” he muttered. “I should stand awkward if he wasn’t there.”
He felt a strange sense of hesitation come over him, and a tremor of dread that made him flinch from his task, till he thought of Pengelly, and the money that was to be his reward.
“There’s nothing to be scared about,” he muttered. “If he wasn’t there I could get up the winze, and then up to the next gallery by the ladders, so I’m all right.”
Satisfying himself that he had nothing to fear on his own account, he turned and went on along the dark galleries, all of which were pretty familiar to him, till he reached the place where the new workings were going on, and stopped by the end of the passage where Geoffrey had marked out the portion that was not to be touched.
The man’s face looked very stern and grim as he took out of his pocket along cartridge, ready for blasting purposes, one which he had filched from the receptacle, and three fuses, which he tied together, end to end, so as to make one of extraordinary length.
Laying these upon a ledge ready, he went off to a niche in the rock some distance off and returned with a miner’s tamping-iron, and slipping off his frock, and turning up the sleeves of his tight jersey shirt, he paused for a few moments to consider.
As he stood listening, the stillness of the mine was awful, and the sweat stood out upon his forehead as he glanced timorously round; but, nerving himself with the thoughts of revenge and reward, he poised the bar, and the next minute the galleries were echoing to the strokes of the tamping-iron, while the sparks flew thick and fast from the stone.