David at last came round enough to know what was said to him, and with Dick’s help was able to crawl into the gate-road, which was not far off. Here the fresher air, for fresh it was not, brought him still more round, and he sat up and eat some of the food which Dick had brought. David kept staring at Dick all the time he was eating without saying a word, as if he did not know what had happened.
“Come along now, David,” said Dick, at last; “there is no time to lose, for the lamp may be going out, and it won’t do to have to find our way to the shaft in the dark.”
“Oh no, no. How did you find me, Dick?” asked David.
“Come to look for you,” answered Dick.
“And how is poor mother? She must have been in a sad way all these days, thinking what had become of me.”
“Mrs Adams bears up pretty well,” said Dick.
“But how long do you think I have been down here? A week, or is it longer?” said David.
He could scarcely believe that it had been from the Saturday morning till the Monday evening since he was lost.
“I thought that I must have been down very many days,” he remarked. “I had my day’s dinner with me, so I just took a little nibble of food for breakfast, and another for dinner, and a little more for supper. It seemed to me that I stopped five or six hours between each meal, and then I lay down and went to sleep, and when I awoke I thought it was morning, and that the people would be coming down to work; so I got up and walked on, thinking that they would hear me; but I waited and waited, there was not the sound of a pick anywhere near, and I knew that there would be no use shouting. Once I found the air much cooler, and as I looked up I saw the stars shining right overhead, and then I knew that I must be under an air shaft. Now, I thought, I shall find the road to the pit’s mouth, but I turned the wrong way, I suppose, and at last, when I could go on no longer, I went right into the hole where you found me. I couldn’t have been long there. I tried to cry out as loud as I could, but I had no strength; and if you hadn’t come, Dick, I should have died before many minutes.”
David gave this account of himself by fits and starts, as he and Dick were trying to find their way into the chief gate-road. Dick had to support his friend, who was very weak, and scarcely able to get along. He himself, too, was ready to faint, for he had been walking some hours, and that in a hot mine was very trying. For what they could tell they might still have a long distance to go. They went on for some way, then again they had to sit down and rest.