“Look out that your skirt does not hit against the side of the shaft!” was his final injunction.
“Can we go down now?” he asked Burns.
“One second,” answered the foreman. “There is a load of sharpened drills to go down with us.”
In a moment the little “nipper” appeared with his armful of drills, and with a ringing clatter dropped them into the bottom of the bucket.
“I think we had better take Mr. Cameron to the four hundred level right away,” said Stephen to Burns. “I want him to see that new stope. The air isn’t very bad there, is it?”
“No, it’s pretty fair.”
“All right. Lower away, four hundred!” called Loring to the hoist engineer, at the same time swinging himself onto the bucket beside the others.
The skip began to drop slowly down the timbered shaft. For the first twenty-five or thirty feet it was fairly light, and Jean could see the joints in the rough-grained, greasy boards. Then all became dark. She clutched the cable tightly and half closed her eyes. The water began to drip down hard from above, spattering sharply on their oilskins. Loring, close beside her, whispered: “All right. Just hold on tightly, Miss Cameron! Great elevator, isn’t it?”
Even while Loring spoke, a chill struck to his heart. What if the hoist engineer failed in his duty! What if the bucket crashed into the black depths that lay below them, or shot wildly upward to be caught in the timbers at the top! What if Jean Cameron were to be snatched away as those others had been, through the wanton carelessness of the man in charge above! Would any punishment be black enough for him? Would eternity be long enough for him to make a decent repentance?
By the vigor of the answer which his heart made to the question, Loring sensed the pang of remorse which had gnawed at his conscience without ceasing ever since that awful night. “That was what you did.” The words said themselves over and over in his ear as the bucket slid downward.