Chapter 4. A Foolhardy Venture For A Goodly End

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_ CHAPTER FOUR. A FOOLHARDY VENTURE FOR A GOODLY END

It seemed as if that stone would never reach the bottom, and a curious expression was upon the eager faces that peered down, a strained look almost of pain, till all at once there was a start as of relief, as a hollow heavy plash was heard that came hissing, and echoing, and reverberating up the rocky sides of the shaft past them and into the sunny air.

"Ugh!" growled Josh, "who knows what gashly creatures lives down there. P'r'aps its harnted with them as tumbled down and was killed."

"Don't talk nonsense, Josh," said Will, in a voice full of contempt; "I never heard of anybody falling down here."

"Looks as if lots had. Ugh! I wouldn't go down for the price of a new boat and all her gear."

"If everybody felt like you do, Josh, what should we have done for tin and copper?"

"I d'now," growled Josh. "Why can't you leave it alone and 'tend to the fishing. Arn't catching pilchar' and mack'rel good 'nough for you? Yah! I shall never make nothing of you."

"No, Josh; catching pilchard and mackerel is not good enough for me."

"Then why not get aboard the smack and larn to trawl for sole and turbot? There arn't no better paying fishing than that, so long as you don't get among the rocks."

"No, Josh; nor trawling won't do," said Will, who ashore seemed to take the lead that he yielded to his companion and old Michael Polree on board the lugger. "I want to make my way in the world, and do you hear, I will."

He said the last word so emphatically that the fisherman stared, and then said in an ill-used tone:

"Then why don't you try in a reasonable way, and get to be master of a lugger? and if that arn't enough for you, have your share o' nets in another; not come poking about these gashly holes. What's the good?"

"Good!" cried Will, with his eyes flashing. "Hasn't a fortune been got out of Gwavas mine year after year till the water began to pour in?"

"Oh, yes! out o' that."

"And I'm sure one might be got out of this," cried Will, pointing down into the black void.

"What, out o' this gashly pit? Yah! Why didn't the captain and 'venturers get it, then, when they dug it fifty year 'fore I was born?"

"Because they missed the vein."

"And how are you going to find it, lad?"

"By looking," said Will. "There's Retack Mine over yonder, and Carn Rean over there, and they're both rich; and I think the old people who dug down here went too far, and missed what they ought to have found."

"And so you're going to find it, are you, my lad?"

"I don't know," said Will quietly; "but I'm going to try."

As he said those last words he set his teeth and knit his brow, looking so calmly determined that Josh picked up a little bit of granite, turned it over in his fingers a few times as if finding a suitable part, and then began to rub his nose with it softly.

"Well, you do cap me, lad, you do," he said at last. "Look ye here, now," he cried, as if about to deliver a poser, and he seated himself on the rock and crossed his legs, "you don't expect to find coal, do you?"

"No," said Will, "there is no coal in Cornwall."

"Nor yet gold and silver?"

"No: not much."

"Then it's tin you're after, and it won't pay for getting."

"You are wrong, Josh," said the lad smiling.

"Not copper?"

"Yes: copper."

"Yah! Now is it likely?"

"Yes," said Will. "Come here."

Josh rose reluctantly, and the lad began to descend again, climbing quickly down the old mine debris till they reached the shore, and then walking a dozen yards or so he climbed in and out among the great masses of rock to where there was a deep crevice or chink just large enough for a full-grown man to force himself through to where the light came down from above.

"What's the good o' coming into a gashly place like this?" growled Josh, whose breast-bone and elbows had been a little rubbed.

"I wanted to show you that," said Will, pointing to a little crack through which a thread of water made its way running over a few inches of rock, and then disappearing amongst the shingly stones.

"Well, I can see it, can't I?"

"Yes; but don't you see that the rock where that, water runs is all covered with a fine green powder?"

"Yes, it's sea-weed," said Josh contemptuously.

"No; it's copper," cried Will excitedly; "that's a salt of copper dissolved in the water that comes out there, and some of it is deposited on the stones."

"Yah! nonsense, lad! That arn't copper. Think I don't know copper when I see it? That arn't copper."

"I tell you it is," said Will; "and it proves that there's copper in the rock about that old mine if anybody could find it; and the man who discovers it will make his way in the world."

"You do cap me, you do indeed, lad. I shall never make anything of you. Well, and do you mean to go down that gashly hole."

"I do; and you are going to manage the rope!"

"And s'pose you falls in and gets drowned, what am I to say to your uncle?"

"I'm not going to fall in, and I'm not going to be drowned," said Will quietly. "I'm going to try and find that copper; so now come along."

There was not a nice suitable piece of stone for Josh to use in polishing his nose, so he contented himself with a rub of the back of his hand before squeezing himself through the narrow passage between the masses of rock, and following his companion to the ledge where the old adventurers had spent their capital in sinking the shaft, and had given up at last, perhaps on the very eve of success.

"It's all gashly nonsense," cried Josh as they reached the mouth of the shaft once more; "if there'd been copper worth finding, don't you think those did chaps would have found it?"

"They might or they might not," said Will quietly; "we're going to see."

He went to another crevice in the face of the cliff and drew out a good-sized iron bar shaped like a marlinspike but about double the size, and throwing it down with a clang upon the rock he startled a cormorant from the ledge above their heads, and the great swarthy bird flew out to sea.

"Lay out that line, Josh," said Will, who, after a little selection of a spot, took up the bar and began to make a hole between two huge blocks of granite, working it to and fro so as to bury it firmly half its length.

The crevice between the stones helped him in this; and he soon had it in and wedged tightly with a few sharp fragments that had been dug from the shaft.

"Going to fasten one end o' the line to that?" sang Josh.

"Yes."

"What's the good? I could hold it right enough with a couple such as you on the end."

"But I want the rope to be round that, Josh, and for you to lower me down or haul me up as I give signals."

"Oh yes!" growled Josh; "only we might as well have had a block and fall."

"If we had brought a block and fall up, Josh, it would have been like telling all Peter Churchtown what we were going to do; and you're the only man I want to know anything about it till I've found the copper lode."

"Ho!" ejaculated Josh, rubbing his nose meditatively with the line. "How much is there here--five-and-thirty fathom?"

"Thirty," said Will, smiling, as his companion passed the cord through his hands with the skilful ease of a seaman. "Will it bear me?"

"Two of you," said Josh gruffly.

"Well, I'm going to trust you to take care of me, Josh," said Will, taking a box of matches from his pocket, and lighting a piece of candle, which he stuck upon one of those little points known as a save-all, and then, bending down, he thrust it into a square niche about a foot below the surface of the mine-shaft--one of several carefully chiselled-out holes evidently intended for the woodwork of a platform.

"Oh! I'll take care of you."

"Lower me down quite slowly, and stop whenever I shout. You're sure you can haul me up?"

"Ha, ha! haw, haw!" laughed Josh. "Can I haul you? What do you take me for--a babby?"

As he spoke he caught the lad by the waistband with one hand, lifted him from the ground, and stiffening his muscles held him out at arm's-length for a few seconds before setting him down.

"That will do, Josh," said Will quietly; and taking the end of the line he made a good-sized loop, round part of which he twisted a piece of sailcloth to make it thicker; then stepping through the loop as though it had been one prepared for an ordinary swing, he turned to Josh:

"Ready?"

"Ay, ay!" was the laconic answer as the fisherman passed the line over the round iron bar, which seemed perfectly safe, took a good grip of the rope, and then stood looking at his young companion.

"I tried to stop you when you wanted to dive down," he said, "and I s'pose I ought to try and stop you now. It looks a gashly sort of a hole. S'pose I was to let go?"

"But you would not, Josh," said Will confidently, as he lowered himself slowly over the edge as calmly as if only about to descend a few feet, with perfect safety in the shape of solid earth beneath him, though, as he moved, he set free a little avalanche of fragments of granite, that seemed to go down into the shaft with a hiss, which was succeeded by the strange echoing splashes--weird whispers of splashes--as they reached, the water below.

It would have daunted many a strong man; but so intent was the lad upon his task that he paid no heed to the sounds, and directly after, taking the candle from its niche, he began to scan the walls of the shaft.

"Lower away, Josh, steadily and slowly," he said, as his head disappeared from the fisherman's sight. "I'll shout to you when I want to stop."

The face of the fisherman seemed to undergo a change as his companion passed out of his sight--from looking stolid and soured it suddenly became animated and full of excitement; the perspiration stood out upon it in a heavy dew, and muttering to himself, "I sha'n't let him go down far," he slowly lowered away.

For the first few yards of his descent Will could easily scrutinise the walls of the carefully-cut square hole by the light of clay, the flame of his candle looking pale and feeble; but as he sank lower, swinging to and fro with a pendulum-like motion, which now took him to one side of the shaft, now to the other, so that it needed little effort on his part to be able to carefully examine fully half of the cutting, the light from the candle grew more clear and bright, and he thrust it here and there wherever there was a glitter in the time-darkened stone.

Lower and lower, with now his elbow chafing against the rough wall, now his boots, but nothing to reward his search. There was a bright glitter here, but it was only the large flakes of mica in the stone. Lower down there was a sign of ore--of little black granules bedded in deep-red stone, and before this he paused for a minute, for he knew that there was here a vein of tin; but as far as he could tell it looked poor, and not so good as some that miners had told him hardly paid for crushing.

"All right, Josh; lower away!" he cried; and his words went echoing up to where the fisherman slowly allowed the strong line to glide through his hands.

Some twenty feet lower Will shouted to his companion to halt, for there was a broad band of glittering-yellow metallic stone crossing the shaft-wall diagonally.

The lad's heart beat wildly for a few moments, but he calmed down as he felt that had this been of any value the old adventurers would not have passed it by.

"Only mundic," he said, as he inspected it more closely. "Lower away, Josh!" and the band of sulphuret of iron was left behind.

Lower and lower, with the top of the shaft looking a comparatively small square hole, and as the lad glanced up at it for a moment the first symptom of fear that he had felt attacked him. For as he saw how frail was the cord by which he hung, and realised that he was depending entirely upon his companion's strength of arm, his brain swam, his eyes closed, and he clung tightly with both hands to the rope.

The attack passed off directly.

"Josh thinks I'm a coward," he muttered, "and I suppose I am; but I won't show it;" and shouting a cheery order to the fisherman to lower away, the lad descended farther and farther, with the right of his candle flashing now from the walls, which were wet and shining with the oozings of the surrounding rock. This moisture had gone on coating the walls in patches for many a long year, so that in these places it was impossible without scraping for the keenest of eyes to detect even the composition of the stones, and with a sigh of dissatisfaction the searcher shouted to Josh to lower away.

"Here, you've gone down far enough," cried Josh. "I'm going to haul you up now."

"No, no!" shouted Will, the excitement of being in antagonism with his helpmate driving away the last particle of nervousness. "Lower away!"

Josh hesitated for a moment, and made a movement as if to rub his nose, but his hands were engaged, and he got over the difficulty by bending down his head and applying the itching organ to the rope, after which he shook his head fiercely, but went on lowering.

"He's getting too much for me a gashly sight, this boy," he growled.

There was ample line to lower Will right down to the surface of the water, though he was unaware of the fact, as he swung gently to and fro, eagerly scanning every clear space of the rock through which the shaft had been cut; and where the wall was dry, in spite of the time that had elapsed since the work was done the marks of the miners' picks and hammers were as clear as if the blows had fallen only a few months before. As the lad looked, too, he could, in his own disappointment, realise how great must have been that of the adventurers whose capital was being expended day after day cutting on and finding nothing but grey, hard granite, with here and there bands of ruddy stone suggestive of the presence of tin, but in such minute quantities that it would not pay for the labour of lifting out and crushing the stone.

Granite, granite, nothing but granite; and now the rope seemed to cut harshly into his legs, and a curious aching sensation set in, half numbing the arm that clung to the rope, for the lad had been so deeply interested in his search that he had not once altered his position.

"Look out, Josh!" he said, "I'm going to change hands."

"Here, I'm a-going to haul you up now," replied Josh, the great shaft acting like a speaking-tube, so that conversation was easy enough.

"Not yet," shouted back Will; and as the rope seemed to glide down he changed his position a little, taking the candle in the numbed hand, a fresh grip with his right, and altering his seat so that the line did not cut so harshly.

As he did so another slight touch of nervousness came over him; and in spite of himself he began to glance at the knot he had made in the rope, and then at the candle to see how much longer it would last, to find that it was half burned down and that the length of time it would keep burning must guide his descent. He was a little disheartened too, for it had not entered much into his calculations that clever men must have well examined that shaft when it was being cut, and that they would have made the discovery if it was to be made.

In fact, the idea had come to him when climbing up the cliff in search of sea-birds' eggs. He had reached this shelf and found the forgotten mine, and to him it had seemed like the entrance to a matter-of-fact, everyday-life Aladdin's cave, where, after a little search, he was going to hit upon a vein of copper and become an independent man. And now that he was making his first bold venture into the region where the precious metal was to be found, all was darkness, nothing but stone walls, now wet and slimy, now cold, and hard, and grey.

"Here, now you are coming up," shouted Josh; and the descent was once more checked.

"No, no. Just a few more fathoms, Josh," shouted back Will. "The candle's nearly done."

There was a grumbling response, and the descent continued once more, till, as he swung to and fro, the lad gave his feet a thrust against the wall, turned right round, and then uttered an eager ejaculation:

"Stop, Josh!" he said, and then, "Hold fast!"

"Right!" came from above; and as Will found himself opposite to an opening in the wall he swung himself backwards and forwards two or three times, till, gaining sufficient impetus, he could have landed right in a low arch, evidently the mouth of a gallery following a lode.

"Half a fathom lower, Josh," shouted Will; and the rope ran down a trifle here, and then, swinging himself to and fro again, he finally gave himself a good urge through the air and his feet rested on the rough floor.

He turned cold, and the wet dew of horror stood upon his face as he grasped at the rough wall, sending the candle flying forwards to lie burning sidewise upon the stones, for the rebound of the rope as it struck the crown of the arch nearly dragged him back just as he had released his hold.

It was a narrow escape, but forgotten directly in the excitement of his discovery; and freeing himself from the rope he picked up the candle carefully, to find that he had only about an inch left, and perhaps a mile of galleries to explore.

"There must be abundance of metal here," he said aloud, as he held the candle above his head and gazed before him. "I shall be the discoverer and--"

"Here, hoy! Will Marion! ahoy!" shouted Josh, who was kneeling down at the edge of the shaft, his face drawn with horror and strangely mottled, as he stared down into the pit. For, without warning, Will had freed himself from the rope, the tension upon which was gone; and as Josh drew a few feet up, and let the line run down again, his eyes seemed starting from his head, and he listened for the awful splash he expected to hear.

He listened for quite a minute, and then rousing himself from his half cataleptic state, he uttered a stentorian hail.

"Right, Josh, right!" shouted Will. "I've found it at last."

"He's found it at last!" growled Josh, wiping his wet brow. "Why, he must have got to the bottom then. Are you all right?"

"All right!" came back faintly; and Josh gave his hands a rub, his arms a stretch, and then leaving the rope, he seated himself on the stones, thrust his hands into his pockets, and out of one he drew forth a heavy clasp-knife, from the other a steel tobacco-box, which he opened, took out some roll tobacco, and proceeded to cut himself off a piece to chew.

As he was thus occupied a strange, sharp, rustling noise fell upon his ear, and then stopped.

He listened, and looked round, but saw nothing.

"Can't be snakes up here!" he muttered, and then he became all alert once more, for there was a noise from below, as of a small stone having fallen.

"What's he doing of now?" growled Josh. "Here, I wish I hadn't come. Eh! What!"

Just at the same time, after carefully groping his way for a very short distance along the gallery, Will was warned by his expiring candle to return to the mouth, which he reached just in time to hear a curious whistling sound and then a long-drawn splash.

"What's that?" he exclaimed, and then his blood ran cold as, in a hoarse voice that he hardly knew as his own, he shouted up the shaft:

"Josh, Josh! The rope!"

It was in a frantic hope that his idea was wrong, and that it was not the rope which he had heard _whish_ through the air, and then fall below.

Just then the candle wick toppled over on one side in a little pool of molten composition, sputtered for an instant, sent up a blue flash or two, and went out. _

Read next: Chapter 5. Will Finds Himself In A Painful Position

Read previous: Chapter 3. Pilchar' Will And The Old Folks At Home

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