“Do you hear, sir? Come back here, and let’s get out of this,” cried Sturgess again. “It arn’t fair to a man to bring him into such a hole. This isn’t a mine.”
“My good fellow,” said Reed quietly, “you are alarming yourself about nothing. I can get the lanthorn directly, and it is a pity to leave it here.”
The miner uttered a hoarse sigh which was almost a groan, and crouched on the rugged shelf, looking down with starting eyes, as Reed glanced quickly once more at the face of the rock, and then, taking fast hold of another projection, he tried again to get a little lower, and had looked beyond the lanthorn, to see that he was on a very rapid slope, going down to unknown depths for aught that he could tell; for all below the dim light was black—a terrible void, out of which came the splash and roar of falling water.
He could not help a shudder as his mind raised up horrors in connection with that black darkness, and the possibility of his falling and going down and down into some rushing water which was waiting to bear him away.
But it was only a momentary nervousness. Then he smiled to himself, and thought of home and of Janet Praed—how horrified she would be if she could see him then.
“And nothing whatever to mind but imaginary fears,” he said to himself.
“Stop a minute, sir,” came in a hoarse whisper from above. “Give me the matches and candles, and I’ll strike another light.”
“And then I go to perdition for aught you care,” thought Clive Reed. “No, hang me if I do.”
He took no notice of the appeal, but lowered one foot, got a fresh hold, bent towards the lanthorn, extending his arm to the utmost, touched the handle, but it moved an inch, a stone broke from where he was standing, to go down with a rattle, and then, to the young man’s dismay, the lanthorn began to glide.
It was all in a moment. He bent down lower and made a sudden snatch, his left hand slipped from its hold, and he was falling, but in that brief instant he grasped the lanthorn. The next it was beneath him, the light was out, and with a rush of dislodged stones he felt himself rushing rapidly down the cavern side with the water roaring loudly in his ears, but pierced by a cry that robbed him of all power as thoroughly | as if he had received a paralytic stroke.