Unconscious of the surprise he had thus excited, Frank Trevelyan rushed forward into the midst of the assembled group, and seizing hold upon a stout little old gentleman who seemed to be the leading man of the party, endeavoured, as well as his exhausted state would permit, to explain the fearful misadventure which had just occurred. The intelligence excited an exclamation of horror from all who heard it.
"What a dreadful death!" exclaimed the old gentleman.
"Oh! don't say so, for heaven's sake," cried Frank—"He may be, and I fear is, much hurt; but I trust he may yet be saved."
"Impossible!" said half a dozen voices. "Why, the shaft's hundreds of feet deep."
"But my companion is yet far from the bottom of it," resumed Frank—"Something or other has interposed to prevent his falling lower. He spoke, and told me so—Oh! for mercy's sake make haste, and you may yet preserve his life."
"What a horrible situation!" exclaimed the old gentleman; "but no time must be lost in talking about it, or inquiring into the why or the wherefore. So here you, Timothy, John Clarke, Harris, Tom Carpenter, run for your lives, every man Jack of you to the farm, where you'll find plenty rope;—and here, miners, my dear men—do you bestir yourselves—succeed or not, I'll pay you well. Could any thing be more fortunate?" continued the old gentleman, soliloquising to himself—"could any thing be more fortunate than our show of fire-works bringing all the miners of the parish about our ears; the very best hands in the world, from woeful experience in like matters, to render aid in an accident of this kind."
No one required to be told a second time; and almost ere the words were out of the worthy squire's mouth, every body had dispersed here and there to procure ropes, and whatever might be required; all of which were collected with a celerity almost incredible; and then off started plenty of able and willing hands, all in eager haste to accomplish the charitable object they were bent upon.
And now we must return to poor Vernon Wycherley, whom we left pent up in a narrow dungeon many feet beneath the surface, enveloped in darkness, and with difficulty sustaining an irksome and even painful position, by keeping his body jammed across, and, as it were, forming a kind of bridge over this awful chasm; whilst the loose soil, upon whose unstable foundation his only chance of safety depended, gradually crumbling away, kept his attention unceasingly alive to the certain fate that awaited him when unable longer to retain his hold; the horrors of which were still further augmented by the deafening din that thundered forth as each detached mass reached the water far, far below. Few men, indeed, could have sustained a sufficient degree of self-possession to have held on a minute under such trying circumstances; but our tall young hero was possessed of that true kind of courage, which, though disinclined to seek out danger for mere danger's sake, is never daunted by its approach, however fearful or unexpected it may be; and thus he was enabled to await his impending fate with calm resignation. Strange, too, as it may appear, his thoughts, notwithstanding his appalling situation, would now and then wander to common everyday matters. Even the events of that very afternoon occurred to him, and the beauteous form he had been so much struck with passed in fancy before his eyes. "Would she pity his fate?" he asked himself—"alas! no—how was she to know any thing about it? Poor Frank, too," he thought, "what can he say to my unexpected, and probably fatal accident? I fear all his philosophy will, at least this time, fail of convincing him;—it is all for the best, but better for myself, perhaps, than him, as far as chances of being saved go; for with his little legs, it must have been all over with him some time before this. But, gracious Heaven! may not such a catastrophe have already happened to him?"
The start this last thought excited had well nigh proved fatal—a large quantity of earth became detached even by this slight movement, and at the same time caused a change of position, which, though very slight, was yet sufficient to produce a fresh action on the muscles, previously cramped from the unusual strain upon then, and thereby causing so much pain, that the sufferer was nearly relaxing his hold, the retention of which became more arduous every moment; whilst the time thus occupied seemed prolonged to almost tenfold the term of its ordinary duration. Never, therefore, was sound more welcome to his ears, than the hoarse and agitated tone with which his friend, Frank Trevelyan, shouted out to him down the mouth of the shaft; whilst the cheers with which his reply was hailed from several persons who had already reached the spot, assured him that the much-wished-for relief was at hand. Nor was there, indeed, a moment then to lose; for even during the short time it took in adjusting the rope, and getting ready a light, with which an adventurous miner, well skilled in such matters, was about to descend, poor Vernon's strength was rapidly declining; and, conscious of his increasing weakness, he called out earnestly to those above to make haste, as he could hold on no longer, and that the ground was fast slipping away from under him. Anxiously indeed throbbed every breast during the interval occupied by the miner's descent, and breathless was the suspense with which each awaited the signal to pull away again upon the rope, which had scarcely been given, when a heavy rumbling sound, followed by a whirring noise, and terminating in a tremendous booming crash, whose fearful din and uproar it is impossible to describe, caused a thrill of horror to pass through the frame of every bystander; whilst Frank, uttering a loud cry, threw himself with his face upon the ground, and grasped the turf in all the frenzied agony of grief, till the loud cheers that made the welkin ring again, aroused him to a state of consciousness, when all his grief was turned into joy by discovering the friend whose loss he had just begun to deplore, again safely landed on the earth's surface, and apparently but little the worse for his extraordinary tumble.
The noise which had caused so much unnecessary alarm was produced by the projecting mass, which, loosened by Vernon's violent descent upon it, had given way the instant it lost the partial support caused by the pressure of his body against it.