"Where you've been I can go—and I'm going," declared Jeckie. "Come on—we'll go together."
The others, standing round, watched Jeckie's descent into the tangled mass of iron, wood, masonry; she herself, following her manager, cared nothing for danger, and was only intent on listening for the dread sound of which he had spoken. And, at last, when they had made their way a good two hundred feet into the shaft, penetrating through broken and twisted plates and girders, Robinson paused and held up the lantern he was carrying as a sign that they could go no farther.
"Listen!" he said in a whisper. "You'll hear!"
Jeckie steadied herself among the wreckage, looking down the darkness beneath it. And suddenly, in the silence that hung all round them, she heard, far below, in the gloomy depths which her imagination pictured the steady, heavy rush of water. It was unmistakable—and once again she felt sick in heart and brain, and weak of body.
"It's increased in volume since I was down," muttered Robinson as he stood at her side. "It's as I said before—the pit'll be flooded out. There's no help for it. It must be rising fast, that water."
He tore away a loose piece of iron from the wreckage close by, and dropped it through the twisted mass beneath their standing place. The sound of its heavy splash came almost at once.
"You hear!" he exclaimed. "It's within thirty or forty feet of us now! It'll be up here before long; it'll rise to the brim. There's nothing to be done, Miss Farnish—we'd best make our way up again."
When Jeckie climbed out of the last mass of wreckage at the mouth of the shaft, it was to find Revis standing close by, talking to the men who hung about. He came up to her with a face full of grave concern.
"This is a bad job, my lass!" he said in low tones. "I'm as sorry for you as I can be!" He turned from her to Robinson. "Water rising?" he asked.
"Aye, fast as it can!" answered Robinson. "There must have been a tremendous lot released right down where they'd got to. And we were close on to the seam, too!"