'Okay,' I said. My voice sounded hoarse. 'What's the job?'

'That's more like it,' he said, and seemed to relax. His gaze wandered to the bottle. 'Another drink?' I finished mine at a gulp and held out my glass. I needed that drink. That's another thing,' he said as he poured it out, 'there's no shortage of liquor in the place. But I only serve it out after dark. That's just so as nobody goes up to the village drunk.' He picked up the sheet of paper from his desk. 'Now then, what I want you to do is to blow a hole in the sea bed.'

'Blow a hole in the sea bed?' I stared at him in astonishment.

But he was quite serious. 'Yes,' he said. And then added after a moment's thought, 'No point in my not telling you why, since as soon as you see the layout you'll be able to figure it out for yourself. At the moment we bring the stuff in by boat to the main adit of Wheal Garth. The adit empties into a big cave and we've got a large, flat-bottomed barge in there. Well, that method is too dangerous. We've got coastguards' look-out as close as Cape Cornwall, which is the next headland but one to the south. Not only that, it means fine weather runs only. Sometimes our boats have to lie off for several days pretending to fish until the sea's calm enough for the operation to be carried out.'

He handed me the sheet of paper. 'There's a plan of Wheal Garth at the hundred and twenty fathom level — that's fifty feet below sea level. We've de-watered the mine down to this level which is the first of the undersea levels. Now then, see that long gallery running out under the sea?' He pointed it out to me on the plan — a finger of ink stretching almost straight out from the coast. Beside it was the name Mermaid. 'That gallery is half a mile long. I've had two men working on it for nearly a year — deserters, same as you. One of them is a stone mason, the other a quarry man. We've straightened it out, squared it off and built up a neat ledge along both sides. On these ledges a carriage drawn by a hawser can run — even when the gallery is full of sea water. No metal rails to rust, you see. What I want you to do is — '

He stopped then, for the door had opened. I looked round. An elderly man had entered. He was tall and blond with a short, pointed beard and small, round eyes that looked at me from beneath shaggy eyebrows. 'I didn't know you'd anybody here, Henry,' he said to Manack and made as though to go. His voice was soft and, but for the trace of a Cornish accent, I would have said he was a Norseman, so fine a figure did he make as he stood there with the firelight glowing on his rugged, bearded features.

'Just a minute, Father,' Manack said. This is Jim O'Donnel. He's going to work here for a bit. He's a miner.'

The old man's eyebrows lifted and there was a glitter of something like excitement in his eyes. 'A miner, is he?' He smiled. It was a nice smile, the sort of smile that seemed to warm the room. 'Well, my boy,' he said to me, 'it's good to know there'll be a miner working here at last. I've been trying to persuade my son to take on miners here ever since he came back. But there've always been — ah — difficulties,' he added vaguely. He turned to Manack. His eyes were shining. 'This is kind of you, Henry.' He shook his head sadly. 'Pity you didn't grow up to be a miner. You'd have understood the possibilities of Wheal Garth then. However, one's a help — a very definite help. At least we can make a start now.'

'O'Donnel is working for me.' Manack's voice was sharp. The old man's eyebrows went up again. It was a trick he had. He was all tricks, but I didn't know it then.

'Working for you?' he said. 'And what, may I ask, can you be wanting a miner for? You know nothing about mining. He must work for me. If he's a good miner, then I'll prove to the world that the Cornish mining industry isn't dead.'