'Suppose the entrance gets jammed by rock?'
'Then I'll go down in a diving suit. Don't worry about it. That'll be my problem. What you've got to do is get to work on that shaft there. And remember, the sooner you get the job done, the sooner you'll be safe aboard the Arisaig. You take a look round now. I'm going back to the main shaft to see how Friar's getting on. I must remind him to get those compressed air cylinders up to the store room. I'll be back inside half an hour. Then maybe you'll be able to tell me how long the job is going to take and what your plan of operation is.'
'All right,' I said. 'I'll have a look round.' I watched his lamp bobbing along the gallery. It was surprising how straight that Mermaid gallery was. The levels of most Cornish mines twist and turn as they.follow the sea. It was only later that I learned that the Mermaid was a development gallery. They had been looking for just what Manack had found.
As the glimmer of Captain Manack's lamp faded to a far-off pinpoint of light, I became very conscious of the sound of water all round me. The regular heart-beats of the pump were just a faint throb — a sound so slight that it might have been the pressure of blood in my ears. Dominating everything — the only definite sound — was the sound of the water. It trickled, it gurgled, it went plop, plop, plop in the pool at the bottom of the pit. I suppose it drained through to the lower levels, for there wasn't any more than a few inches on the gallery floor, and it had to go somewhere. I thought of all those levels, sixteen of them, thrusting out under the sea. And this was the top. The roof of the Mermaid gallery was the bed of the sea. It bore the whole weight of the water.
It felt chill and dank. The trouble was I didn't yet feel at home in the mine. It was different to any I'd been in before. And when things are different, that's when a miner worries. Whilst I had been standing there listening to the sounds of the water, the light of Manack's lamp had disappeared altogether. He must have reached the end of the gallery and turned up to the adit. I swung myself on to the ladders and climbed the scaffolding.
The shaft they had blasted was roughly circular and about ten feet in diameter. It coincided with the pit in the floor of the gallery. The ledges on which the carriage wheels would run must be a good eight feet apart. That gave plenty of room for the rubble from the breach in the sea bed to fall straight into the pit. I climbed until I reached the end of the shaft. For amateurs they'd done a pretty neat job. They'd kept the shape of the shaft, though it was a bit ragged at the edges. I felt the rock above my head. It was wet and in the light of my lamp I saw what looked like a shrimp scuttle into a crevice. The sides of the shaft streamed with water. I wondered whether Manack's calculations were right. The rock had a peculiar feel about it, as though it was part of the sea bed. It wasn't that it was soft, and yet that's the way it felt. It was granite all right, with streaks of basalt. But the surface of it was slimed over.
I climbed down and had a look at the pit. There was a ladder running down into it. As I peered down a change in the rock caught my eye. There were some tools on the lower platform of the scaffolding. I went down into the pit with a hammer and a cold chisel. It was about fifteen feet down to the water. The rock formation that had attracted my attention was across the other side. I put my gum boot down into the water. It was only a foot deep. I waded across.
Sudden excitement surged through me as I examined that dull rock. I got to work with hammer and chisel. All other thoughts were swept from my mind. I knew I was not making any discovery. The elder Manack had found it first. But God, if you've ever been a tinner — to chisel out almost solid ore like that!
After about a quarter of an hour's work I was streaming with sweat and my blood was thudding through my veins, for the air was not good down there. But I didn't care. I held in my hand a piece of mother tin about the size of my fist. And I had chiselled it out myself. I cleaned it on the sleeve of my overalls and peered at it, turning the jet of my lamp full on in order to see it better. Gold or tin — what did it matter? The ore content was such that the man who worked the seam couldn't help but become rich. If this were Australia now, I could have staked out a claim somewhere near Manack's. I stood there dreaming with the ore in my hand until a voice suddenly said, 'So you have found the lode, eh?'
The beam of a lamp flashed on me from above. I looked up. I could see nothing but the glaring disc of a miner's lamp. 'Now you understand why the gallery must not be flooded,' the voice added, and I knew then that it was the old man. 'Well? What have you decided?' he asked.