“Come!” he said, fiercely, to Hastings, jamming a few inches of space free in the cage with his bulk. “Room for one. You haven’t a second to lose!” he shouted.
Hastings put his hands in his pockets, coolly.
“I stay with my guests,” he said. And with his first word, the cage started upward.
As he turned toward the others, Trevanion, one arm round young Carrington, caught hold of his sleeve.
“We maun run for it!” he shouted.
For out of the great black hole beneath them rose the water, spreading across the bottom of the shaft.
From above, and suddenly faint, they could hear Mr. Wade calling that they must stop, that they must go back for his nephew, and his voice was the voice of a very old man. Trevanion instinctively led them running back into the drift. Young Carrington wrenched himself free. “I’m all right,” he said. “Took the breath out of me for a minute. I won’t hinder.”
Back of them the water followed silently, gaining gradually up the grade of the drift.
“Not time to make that first rise—the one we came down,” Trevanion said, as they sped along. “Ought to be another—here it is!”
He swerved into a black air shaft, but swept them back into the drift the next instant.