He met my gaze and I knew that he would do what he said. 'All right,' I said.
He nodded and stepped back into the gig. Friar put the lever over and it rattled out of sight down into the bowels of the mine.
'Whatever's happened, man?' Dave said. 'I waited and waited. I thought you'd never come back. I don't like it here at all — not on my own. There's the sound of the water, you know, and it's so quiet.' And when I didn't say anything, he said. 'Is it a row with the Captain you've had?' The sound of the gig ceased. Everything was quiet — only the drip of the water. I shivered and turned towards Dave. He started back. 'It is a ghost you've seen, man?' he said. 'You're as white as a sheet. And your clothes — they're all wet.'
'Yes,' I said, 'I'm cold and wet.'
I went along the gallery to the hideout. Dave stepped aside to let me pass, his hand in his jacket pocket. He was scared of me — scared of Manack — scared of himself. He made me nervous.
As soon as I was inside the hideout, he pulled the slabs to and bolted them. Even then he kept his distance. I stripped and towelled myself down. All the time he plied me with questions. In the end I told him how old Manack had tried to kill me.
'Ter-rible!' he said. 'Ter-rible!' He sat there shaking his head, living the fear that I had suffered with all the emotionalism of his race. 'But why did he do it, man?'
'He didn't want me letting the sea into his beloved mine,' I told him.
'You should have stayed here with me,' he said. 'Worried to death I was about you. I thought maybe the police had come. I went out once. But then I was afraid that if they came, they'd search the mine. I bolted myself in. Like being in a coffin, it was. I got scared. It was so quiet and me not knowing what was happening in the world outside.'
And so he went on whilst I sat and tried to think. The old man was loose in the mine. And Kitty up there alone in the house. How was I to meet her at three in the morning with Dave Tanner sitting there, nervous as a kitten, and his hand on the butt of a gun? And if I did meet her, where were we to go! I was a fool. All I'd been thinking about when I'd told her to meet me was getting out of the place. I'd forgotten I was wanted by the police — forgotten that a description of me had been published. And whilst I tried to sort it out in my mind, that damned little Welshman went on talking. I tried to shut him up. But it was like telling water to stay in a bottle with a broken bottom. He just had to talk. He had to talk because he was scared to sit silent.