lars of quartz veined with tin, and
strange passages going in different directions, far less horrible now.
There was the gallery which dipped down too, one which they found their
way to now from both ends. It looked gloomy and strange, with the
whispering sounds of falling water and the reflections from the candles
on the shining black surface; but knowledge had robbed it of its
horrors.

"Go through it again?" said Gwyn, as they stood looking along it; "to be
sure I would, only I don't want to get wet through for nothing. When we
did wade through, Sam, one was always expecting to put one's foot in a
shaft or in a well, and go down, never to come up again."

"Ay, that would make you feel squirmy, sir."

"It did," said Gwyn, laughing. "But, I say, wasn't Grip a splendid old
fellow? and how he knew! Fancy his swimming right along here!"

"Ay, he is a dog," said Sam. "How is he, sir?"

"Oh, he'll soon be out again; but father wants to keep him chained up
till his bones are properly grown together."

"He'll have to run dot and go one, I suppose, sir?"

"What, lame?" cried Gwyn. "Very little, I think. We can't tell yet,
because his legs are stiff with so much bandaging. I say, Sam, you fall
down the shaft and break your legs, and we'll put 'em in plaster for
you."

"No thank ye, sir," said the man, grinning, as he stopped to snuff his
candle with Nature's own snuffers. "I never had no taste for breaking
bones. Now, then, we'll go round by a bit I come to one day, if you
don't mind a long walk back. Take us another two hours, but the floor's
even, and I want to have a look at it."

"What sort of a place is it?" said Gwyn; "anything worth seeing?"

"Not much to see, sir, only it's one of the spots where the old miners
left off after going along to the west. Strikes me it's quite the end
that way. And I want to make sure that we've found one end of the old
pit."

"Does the place seem worn out?" said Joe, who had been listening in
silence.

"That's it, sir. Lode seems to have grown a bit narrower, and run up
edge-wise like."

"Why, we went there," said Joe, eagerly. "Don't you remember, Ydoll?"

"Yes, I remember now. I'd forgotten it, though. I say! Hark; you can
hear quite a murmuring if you put your ear against the wall."

"Yes, sir, you can hear it plainly enough in several places."

"Don't you remember, Ydoll, how we heard it when we were wet?"

"Now you talk about it, I do, of course,"