cks, who was now recovered to
consciousness, asking his pardon in advance for the cruel penalty
that his rash act was to bring on both of them.

"Forgive me," he said. "I couldn't help it. I didn't know what I was
doing."

"There is nothing to forgive, brother," whispered Michael Sunlocks.

And thus with stammering tongues they comforted one another, and with
hands clasped together they waited for the punishment that had to
come.

At length the warders concluded that for refusing to work, for
obstinate disobedience, and for threatening, nothing would serve but
that their prisoners should straightway do the most perilous work to
be found that day at the sulphur mines.

Now this was the beginning of the end for Red Jason and Michael
Sunlocks, and if the evil chance had not befallen them, God alone can
say how long they might have lived together at Krisuvik, or how soon
or how late they would have become known to one another by their true
names and characters. But heaven itself had its purposes, even in the
barbarity of base-hearted men, as a means towards the great end that
was near at hand. And this was the way of its coming.

A strange change that no one could rightly understand had lately come
upon the natural condition of the sulphur mines. The steam that rose
from the solfataras had grown less and less week by week and day by
day, until in some places it had altogether subsided. This was a
grave sign, for in the steam lay the essence of the sulphur, and if
it ceased to rise from the pits the sulphur would cease to grow.

Other changes came with this, such as that deep subterranean noises
arose from parts of the plain where no fissures had yet been seen,
and that footsteps on the earth around these places produced a hollow
sound.

From these signs, taken together, the Captain had concluded that the
life of the mines, the great infernal fire that raged beneath the
surface, was changing ground, leaving the valley, where it had lived
for ages, for the mountain heights, where the low grumblings were now
heard to come from beneath the earth's crust of lava and basaltic
rock.

So, taking counsel of his people, he decided to bore the ground in
these new places in the hope of lighting on living solfataras that
would stand to him against the loss of the dead ones. And it chanced
that he was in the midst of many busy preparations for this work when
the report of the warders reached him, and the boring was still
upp