'Okay,' I said. 'Got the charges?'
He went down and brought up the charges. I tamped them into the charge holes. The rock had all been cleared, except for one great jagged piece too heavy to lift. They were rigging a pulley. We loaded the compressor and the tools. I fixed the fuse and we tramped back along the gallery to the main shaft. Then Manack thrust over the lever that operated the carriage haulage gear. The hawser lifted out of the mud with a sucking sound, tightened and began to reel in on the drum beside the water wheel. We waited until the carriage appeared out of the gloom of the gallery. Then we went up to the surface in the gig. As we went up, I said, 'Supposing the police arrive and start searching the mine. Who's to warn us?'
The girl,' he answered.
'What makes you think she wouldn't give you away?' I asked him. 'After what she heard last night she must hate the place.'
He looked at me and smiled beneath his moustache. 'She'll warn us all right,' he said.
'I don't see why she should,' I persisted.
'Don't you?' He laughed. The harshness of it sounded above the noise of the gig wheels on their wooden runners. 'She'll do it for your sake.'
'My sake?'
'Yes. Good God, man — don't say you haven't realised she's in love with you? Why else do you think she went searching for you up in the old workings last night?' He put his hand on my arm. 'You don't have to worry about that,' he said. 'By daylight tomorrow you'll be beating out past the Scillies on the Arisaig. She doesn't know that, of course. And see you don't tell her. Not that you'll be seeing her before you leave. But if she heard about it. Well, women are funny creatures. Look at the mess Dave got himself into.'
The callous way he spoke of it… I could have killed him. Perhaps he saw how I felt for he said, 'You stay down here till the job's done. The Arisaig will be off the adit at four o'clock. I fixed that this morning. And Mulligan has his orders. He'll not interfere with either you or Tanner. I'll bring you letters for the manager of my estate this evening. Believe me, the sooner you're out of the country the better for you.'