going up or down,
though it seemed to be doing both, as though poised on a gigantic
spring. At length faint glimmers of light began to flash past as it
shot by the mouths of working levels, and finally it stopped with a
jerk that threw its passengers into a confused huddle.

A gate was flung open, and as Peveril stumbled out of the cage he was
only conscious of dancing lights, a crashing rumble of iron against
iron, and a medley of shouting voices. At the same time all these
sounds seemed far away and unreal.

CHAPTER VI

A MILE BENEATH THE SURFACE

"Swallow, lad!"

Mark Trefethen uttered the words, and Peveril, dimly comprehending
him, instinctively obeyed. The effect of that simple muscular action
was marvellous. His brain was instantly cleared of its weight, the
ringing in his ears ceased, and his hearing was restored to its normal
keenness. At the same time he was happily conscious that his stomach
had been restored to its proper position.

"This is plat of bottom level, and we're a mile underground,"
continued Mark. "They put us down in one-thirty this time, but often
they do it ten seconds better."

"I wonder how much longer it would take to drop from a balloon one
mile above the earth?" reflected Peveril, at the same time gazing
about him with a lively interest.

The place in which he stood was a spacious room, hewn from solid rock.
Lighted by several lanterns and little, flaring mine-lamps, it was
also smoothly floored with iron plates, and from it a narrow-gauge
railway led away into the blackness. Articles of clothing and
dinner-pails were hung about the walls, and on the side opposite the
shaft was a bench of rude workmanship.

Every few minutes an iron car holding several tons of copper rock was
run into the plat with a tremendous clatter from the little railway
that penetrated to every "drift" and "stope" of the level. Each of
these cars was pushed by a team of three wild-looking men, who were
stripped naked to the waist. Their haggard faces and naked bodies were
begrimed with powder-smoke, stained red with ore-dust, and gleamed in
the fitful lamp-light with trickling rivulets of perspiration. The
car-pushers were all foreigners--Italians, Bohemians, Hungarians, or
Poles--and the uncouth jargon of their shouts intensified the wildness
of their appearance. Theirs was the very lowest form of mine drudgery,
and but few of them were possessed of intelligence or ambition
sufficient to raise