'Okay,' I said.
'Right. Up you get, then.' I climbed up beside the compressor 'Any more for the Skylark.' Friar grinned and clambered up behind me. Slim went up the gallery to the bottom of the shaft He threw over a lever. There was the sound of a gear engaging and I sensed the cable ahead of us sucking out of the mud. An instant later I was nearly jerked off my feet as the contraption began to move forward. The compressor swayed as the rubber-tyred wheels moved over the uneven surfaces of the ledges. The sprung bearings at the sides grated and clattered against the rock sides of the gallery. 'It's worked by the same wheel wot runs the hoist,' Friar shouted in my ear.
I nodded. It was impossible to talk. The gallery sloped steadily downwards, opening out before us to the extent of the beam of our lamps. The carriage swayed and clattered And yet, considering that it was not on rails, but on rock ledges, it ran remarkably smoothly. The gallery began to level out. Water splashed on my hands and face from the roof and lay in dark pools that reflected the light of our lamps.
'We're under the sea now,' Friar yelled in my ear.
I nodded. But I wasn't thinking any more about the weight of water over our heads. I was becoming accustomed to the mine and my thoughts were engrossed in the ingenuity of Captain Manack's idea. When he had first told me that he was letting the sea into the gallery in order to provide an undersea route for contraband to be brought into the mine, I must admit I thought the whole idea quite fantastic. But now I was beginning to realise that it wasn't quite so fantastic as it seemed, only rather unorthodox.
The use of caves for smuggling, whether natural or hewn by hand, is as old as the hills. It had not surprised me, therefore, to find the underground workings of an old mine being used in this way. But an undersea entrance, with the contraband dropped over the side on wire slides on to an underwater truck — that was an entirely novel idea. True, the whole contraption, with its hawser-drawn carriage and rock ledge rails was crude. But then so much of mining is crude.
The carriage slowed up as the scaffolding at the end of the gallery came into view. It stopped directly beneath the shaft that had been begun in the roof. 'Well, wotjer fink of it, mate?' Friar asked in the sudden silence.
'Okay,' I said.
'Reck'n it'll work?'
'Yes,' I said, 'I think it will.'