"Those fellows belong in an asylum, that's where they ought to be. What are you grinning at? I don't see anything funny in all this."
"I was just thinking that we came up here for a holiday, and it looks very much as if we were going to share the fate of those convicts who are condemned to the mines."
"Well, if you can see a joke in that, you've got a fine sense of humor, that's all I can say. Condemned to the mines, eh? Yes, and it looks uncommonly as if we'd get a life sentence, too."
"Come, don't be downcast, Jack. After all, it might have been worse. They might have shot us."
"Humph! That's so, too; but I don't know that it would have been much worse than this. Tunnel under this mountain, indeed! Why it would take a hundred men a hundred years to do it!"
"Yes, and then it would fall on the top of them. But don't let's discuss that phase of the matter. This mountain will never be tunneled under."
"How do you know?"
"At any rate, not without assistance. But we can only make one attempt to get away."
"Why is that?"
"For the simple reason that if one fails we'll never get another. We are dealing with lunatics, remember that, Jack."