nce he did not move, and Maggot did not
seem inclined to lead the way, for just then something like a sigh came
from below, and a dark cloud passed over the moon.

It is no uncommon thing to find that men who are physically brave as
lions become nervous as children when anything bordering on what they
deem supernatural meets them. Maggot was about the most reckless man in
the parish of St. Just, and Tonkin was not far behind him in the quality
of courage, yet these two stood there with palpitating hearts undecided
what to do.

Ashamed of being thought afraid of anything, Maggot at last cleared his
throat, and, in a husky voice, said,--"Come, then, lev us go down."

So saying he slid down the shaft, closely followed by Tonkin, who was
nearly as much afraid to be left alone on the bleak moor as he was to
enter the old mine.

Now, while the friends were consulting with palpitating hearts above,
baby Maggot, wide-awake and trembling with terror, listened with bated
breath below, and when the two men came scrambling down the sides of the
shaft his heart seemed to fill up his breast and throat, and his blood
began to creep in his veins. Maggot could see nothing in the gloomy
interior as he advanced, but baby could see his father's dark form
clearly. Still, no sound escaped from him, for horror had bereft him of
power. Just then the dark cloud passed off the moon, and a bright beam
shone full on the upper half of the baby's face as he peeped over the
edge of one of the tubs. Maggot saw two glaring eyeballs, and felt
frozen alive instantly. Tonkin, looking over his comrade's shoulder,
also saw the eyes, and was petrified on the spot. Suddenly baby Maggot
found his voice and uttered a most awful yell. Maggot senior found his
limbs, and turned to fly. So did Tonkin, but he slipped and fell at the
first step. Maggot fell over him. Both rose and dashed up the shaft,
scraping elbows, shins, and knuckles as they went, and, followed by a
torrent of hideous cries, that sounded in their ears like the screaming
of fiends, they gained the surface, and, without exchanging a word, fled
in different directions on the wings of terror!

Maggot did not halt until he burst into his house, and flung himself
into his own chair by the chimney corner, whence he gazed on what was
calculated to alarm as well as to perplex him. This was the spectacle
of his own wife taking tea in floods of tears, and being encouraged in
her difficult t