“Oh, a day or two, I guess.”
“Hark, Tom, is that him?”
“I don’t hear any thing, Bennie.”
“Listen! it’s a kind o’ tappin,’ tappin’—don’t you hear it?”
But Tom’s heart was beating so wildly that he could hear no lesser noise.
“I don’t hear it any more,” said Bennie.
But both boys lay awake now and listened; and by and by Bennie spoke again, “There it is; don’t you hear it, Tom?”
This time Tom did hear it; just the faintest tap, tap, sounding, almost, as though it were miles away.
There was a little crowbar there, that had been brought down from the new chambers. Tom caught it up, and hurried into the heading, and beat, half a dozen times, on the wall there, and then, dropping the bar from sheer exhaustion, he lay down beside it and listened.
It was hard to tell if they heard his strokes, though he repeated them again and again, as his strength would permit.