ot a soul at Gethin has heard a whisper of Wheal Danes, or
of your coming; they think I'm fast asleep at my own house, this
instant. But it's been hard work lugging this cursed ladder up here in
such a breakneck night as this, _I_ can tell you, and I am glad enough
to rest a bit."

"Well, it's all over now, Mr. Coe."

"Except that I have got to take it back again," grumbled Solomon.

"True, I had forgotten that. We must not leave it here, must we?"

"Of course not. I do not complain of the trouble, however, only you must
admit I've kept my tryst under some little difficulties, eh, partner?"
and Solomon chuckled self-approval.

"You will be paid in full for all, my good Sir," answered Balfour,
gravely; "that is," he added, hastily, "if the mine should turn out as
you predict. How deep is it? That ladder of yours will surely never
reach the bottom."

"No, indeed. Did I not tell you that there are three levels, each about
the same depth? The copper lode lies at the bottom of the last, in the
northeastern corner. You will find I have concealed nothing from you.
Well, I have got my breath again now. Are you ready, Mr. Balfour?"

"Quite; but walk slowly, I beg, for your lantern is very dim."

"Yes, yes. But wait a minute; I came here yesterday and hid something."
Solomon seated himself upon the edge of the pit, with his legs hanging
over, and began to peer and feel about him.

"Take care what you are at," cried Balfour, eagerly; "you may slip down
and kill yourself, sliding along like that."

Solomon laughed contemptuously. "Never fear, Sir; I have had too many
mischances with mines to fear them. I have fallen down worse places, and
been shut up in others far deeper and darker than Wheal Danes, without
food or candle, for a week, and yet lived through it. The shaft has not
yet been dug, I reckon, as will prove--Oh, here's the torch."

He dragged from under the overhanging rim of the pit a piece of wood
like a bludgeon, one end of which was smeared with pitch; and placing
the lantern with its back to the wind, pushed the stick inside, which
came out a torch, flaming and dropping flame.

"There's our corpse-candle!" cried Coe, triumphantly; "that would keep
us without witnesses, even if any one were so bold as, in a night like
this, to venture near Wheal Danes, to trespass on Tom Tiddler's ground,
where we shall pick up the gold and the silver." There was a wild
excitement, quite foreign to his habit, about this ma