into a crack where he meant to stick the candle close to the
side.

Hardock groaned as he rose and took the paper, staggering as he stooped
again to place it by the candle. But he recovered his steadiness again
directly, and looked, to the Colonel for orders.

"Which branch, sir?" he said.

"The largest," said the Colonel in a hollow voice; "it is the most
likely because it goes nearly straight. Forward then."

They obeyed in silence, and for another couple of hours they went on,
finding the gallery they had taken branch and branch again and again;
but though they sent shout after shout, there was no reply but those
given by the echoes, and they went on again, still leaving burning
candles at each division of the way.

Then all at once, as the Colonel was writing his directions on the
pocket-book leaf, Vores saw the pencil drop from his hand; the book
followed, and he reeled and would have fallen had not the miner caught
him and lowered him gently to the rocky floor.

"I knew it, I knew it," groaned Hardock. "He was dead beat when we got
back, for we've had an awful day. It's only been his spirit which has
kept him up. And now I'm dead beat, too, for I had to almost carry the
Major when we were nearly back. It's like killing him to rouse him to
go on again. Harry Vores, you're a man who can think and help when
one's in trouble. There's miles and miles of this place, and the more
we go on the more tangled up it gets. Which way are we going now:--
east, west, north, or south? Of course, nobody knows."

"What's that?" cried Vores, for a low deep murmur came upon their ears,
and was repeated time after time. "I know; water falling a long way
off. Then that's how it was so much had to be pumped out."

"Yes," said Hardock; "that's water, sure enough. I thought I heard it
this morning. But look here, what shall, we do--carry the Colonel
forward or go back?"

There was no reply; but the murmur, as of water falling heavily at a
great distance, came once more to their ears.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

THE POSITION DARKENS.

"Isn't a flood coming to sweep us away, is it?" said Vores, in a low
voice full of the awe he felt.

"Nay, that's no flood," said Hardock. "There'll be no flood, lads, that
I can't master with my pumping gear. Now, look here, all of you; I want
to try and find those boys, but we can't carry the guv'nor farther in.
What do you all say?"

The men gathered round him, a weird-looki