"I know the place, Michael," cried Audley; "Heavens above! she must be in the Pixies' Hole, which, as you are all likely aware, opens into the shaft."
"Just so, Mr. Trevelyan; through that same hole, the water was pumped into the sea in my grandfeyther's time—and that warn't yesterday, sur."
"How old are you, Michael?" asked the General, lending the old man his hand.
"Seventy past; few miners live to my time, and 'tis ten years since I was underground," replied Treherne with a sigh; "I can mind o' 'ee a small booy, General, robbin' my garden o' apples."
Proceeding cautiously about a hundred yards back from the verge of the cliffs to the place where the dog was baying, they found amid the tangled gorse bushes, the mound of slag and other debris, now covered with rank grass and weeds, in the centre of which yawned the round mouth of the ancient mine; and as they drew near the dog continued to bay the louder, with its forefeet outstretched, and its nose in the air. Then it began to fawn and leap upon its master, with such ponderous gambols, that more than once he was nearly thrown to the ground.
"Down, Rajah—down, sir! keep quiet, dog," he exclaimed, and while he spoke, something like the cry of a female came to his ear; "oh, General, I see it all now! She has been driven by the tide into the Pixies' hole, and is even now on the verge of this shaft; should she be ignorant of its existence, she may fall into the mine and be dead ere she reaches the bottom!"
"It must all be over with the poor lass, Mr. Trevelyan," said the old miner, shaking his head; "hear ye that."
And, as they listened, they could hear above the moaning of the wind and the surging of the sea, the sound of water pouring within the shaft of the mine, and falling apparently to a vast depth below. A sense of the deep profundity that yawned before them, made all save Audley and the old miner, Treherne, shrink, with faces that seemed pale in the fitful gleams of the lanterns, and now the latter spoke again.
"Aw dear, aw dear! dost hear, sur? The tide has risen to upper mouth o' the Pixies' Hole, and is now pouring down into the lower level o' the mine, so if the poor lady beant drowned in one place, she will be at the bottom o' tother."
There seemed to be some probability of such being the case; and though Audley was horror-struck with the suggestion, he said with apparent calmness, the result of a great effort,—