'All right,' I said. 'But if you wound me, it'll be just as bad. Captain Manack needs that gallery opened up right away. A wounded miner is no more use to him than a dead one.'
Dave laughed. 'It's a good shot, I am. And a miner can work all right even if he has no toes.' His voice suddenly became almost strident. 'For Crissake, man, get down that shaft or do I have to hurt you?'
He raised his gun. He meant it. I could see that. I shrugged my shoulders. What was the good? I'd need my feet if I was to get Kitty away from this place. He was raising the gun now. His whole body trembled with the desire to fire it. His eyes were almost glazed. I had broken out into a sweat. 'All right, Dave,' I said quickly, as the black barrel of the gun pointed at my left boot. 'I'll go down.' He didn't seem to hear. I could see the white of his first finger knuckle as he squeezed at the trigger. 'All right, Dave,' I shouted.
His eyes lost their glazed look and met mine. Then he looked down at the gun in his hand. Slowly, almost reluctantly, he lowered his arm to his side. The sweat glistened on his face. He seemed dazed. 'Get on down, then,' he said in a voice that was strangely husky. He was like a man drained of all energy.
I went down the shaft. The rock holds were wet and slimy under my hands. Darkness and the sound of water closed me in. The world above was reduced to a white circle of light. The moon was so low that no light came down into the shaft. Then the circle of light was filled with Dave's dark figure and the yellow gleam of his torch shone on the rock walls.
Back in the hideout, he closed the entrance and bolted it. Then he had me sit on one side of the dugout whilst he squatted on a box on the other side, the gun across his knees and his black eyes watching me ceaselessly. I lit another miner's lamp and sat there thinking of Kitty. The hands of my watch moved slowly round to three o'clock.
Blast that frightened little Welshman! She'd be up there waiting for me. She'd think I wasn't coming because I was angry with her. My God, she might do anything if I didn't turn up. The picture of her seated by the kitchen range, dry-eyed and shaken with fearful sobs, leapt to my mind. She had blamed herself for what had happened. She was in no fit state of mind to be left alone. If I didn't meet her, she might… I thrust that thought out of my mind. She'd come down to the hideout as she had done before. No good imagining things. She was upset — terribly upset — that was all. It was quite natural. She wasn't the sort of girl who would go and do anything foolish.
But as the time drifted by I became more and more worried. I kept on seeing her standing up there all alone as the moon's shadows lengthened and lengthened. And then when I didn't come… There were the cliffs straight ahead of her. She'd think of the cliffs and how my mother had ended her life. She was bound to.
I kept on glancing across at Dave Tanner. And every time I did so, his black eyes would meet mine watchfully. Once he said, 'It's no good. I'm watching you and I'm not sleepy.'
I fancied I could hear the tick of my wrist-watch. It was so still. It was like a tomb. Suddenly there was a new sound. Dave started to his feet, the gun in his hand. It was the hollow sound of rock on rock. It came from the entrance-way. 'Somebody's trying to get in,' Dave whispered. His eyes were dilated and his whole body tense. 'It's the police. It's tapping, they are — searching for the entrance.'