oad lying low beneath
the high, cavernous entrance to the mine, at one side of which a tiny
stream of clear water was trickling. There the bottom began to rise at
the same rate as the roof grew lower; and soon they were, if not on dry
land, walking over a floor of damp, slimy rock.

"Keep straight on, sir?" said the captain.

"Yes, right on. They would not have entered the side gallery, or we
should have met them as we came out."

The first side gallery, a turning off to the left, was reached, and, but
for the fact that the Colonel's party had strayed into that part by
accident, it would have been passed unseen, as it was by the boys and
Dinass, for the entrance was so like the rock on either side, and it
turned off at such an acute angle, that it might have been passed a
hundred times without its existence being known.

The men were very silent, but they kept on raising their lanthorns and
glancing at the roof and sides as they tramped on behind the Colonel.

"There's good stuff here," whispered Vores to his nearest companion.

"Yes, I've been noticing," was the reply. "It's a fine mine, and
there's ore enough to keep any number of us going without travelling
far."

"Yes," said Vores. "Worked as they used to do it in the old days, when
they only got out the richest stuff."

Just then Hardock stopped, and, upon the others closing up, they found
themselves at an opening on the right--one which struck right back, and,
like the other, almost invisible to anyone passing with a dim light.

"Shall we give a good shout here, sir?" said Hardock.

"Yes," was the reply; and the men hailed as with one voice, sending a
volume of sound rolling and echoing down the passage of the main road
and along its tributary.

Then all stood silent, listening to the echoes which died away in the
distance, making some of the experienced miners, accustomed as they were
to such underground journeys, shiver and look strange.

"Vasty place, mate," whispered Vores to Hardock, after they had all
hailed again and listened vainly for a reply.

"Vasty?" said Hardock. "Ay! The gashly place is like a great net, and
seems to have no end."

"Forward," said the Colonel. "No, stop. We have plenty of candles,
have we not?"

"Yes, sir, heaps," was the reply.

"Light one, then, and stick it in a crevice of the rock here at the
corner."

While the man was busily executing the order, the Colonel took out his
pocket-book, wrote largely o