"Mind the old lead shaft, sir."
Dan was conscious that a footstep approached the mouth of the shaft.
"What a gulf! Lucky we didn't tumble down."
There was a short laugh—as of one who was panting after a sharp run—at the mouth of Dan's open grave.
"This was the way they took, sir; over the head toward the Curraghs. They were not half wise, or they would have taken the mountains for it."
"They do not know that we are in pursuit of them. Depend upon it they are following him up to warn him. After all, it may have been his voice that the Deemster heard in the churchyard. He is somewhere within arm's reach. Let us push on."
The voices ceased, the footsteps died off. Forty feet of dull, dead rock and earth had carried the sounds away in an instant. "Stop!" cried Dan, in the hurry of fear. Despair made him brave; fear made him fearless. There was no response. He was alone once more, but Death was with him. Then in the first moment of recovered consciousness he knew whose voice it was that he had heard last, and he thanked God that his call had not been answered. It was the voice of Jarvis Kerruish. In agony of despair Dan perceived that the first company of men had been Quilleash and the fisher-fellows. What fatality had prevented him from crying aloud to the only persons on earth who could have rescued and saved him? Dan realized that his crime was known, and that he was now a hunted man.
It was then that he knew how hopeless was his plight. He must not cry for help; he must stand still as death in his deep tomb. To be lifted out of this pit by the men who were in search of him would be, as it would seem, to be dragged from his hiding-place, and captured in a feeble effort to escape. What then of his brave atonement? Who would believe that he meant to make it? It would be a mockery at which the veriest poltroon might laugh.
Dan saw now that death encircled him on every side. To remain in the pit was death; to be lifted out of it was death no less surely; to escape was hopeless. But not so soon is hope conquered when it is hope of life. Cry for help he must; be dragged out of this grave he should, let the issue be what it could or would. To lie there and die was not human. To live was the first duty, the first necessity, be the price of life no less than future death.
Dan looked up at the sky; it was a small square patch of leaden gray against the impenetrable blackness of his prison-walls. Standing on the ledge of the rock, and steadying himself with one hand, he lifted the other cautiously upward to feel the sides of the shaft. They were of rock, and were quite precipitous, but had rugged projecting pieces on which it was possible to lay hold. As he grasped one of these, a sickening pang of hope shot through him, and wounded him worse than despair. But it was gone in an instant. The piece of rock gave way in his hand, and tumbled into the water below him with a hollow splash. The sides of the shaft were of crumbling stone!