left us by the
ancient Britons who supplied the Phoenicians."

"May be, we cannot tell," said the Major, warmly; "but you cannot deny
that we found the mine full of water."

"No, and I grant that if we leave it alone for a hundred years it will
be full again."

"From the sea?"

"No; from filtration through the rock. The water we pumped out was
fresh, not salt. There, my dear Jollivet, pray don't raise a bugbear
that might scare the men and make them nervous. They are bad enough
with what they fancy about goblins and evil spirits haunting the mine.
Even Hardock can't quite divest himself of the idea that there is danger
from gentry of that kind. Don't introduce water-sprites as well."

The subject dropped; but that night, impressed as they had been by what
they had heard, and partly from partaking too liberally of a late
supper, both Gwyn and Joe had dreams about the sea breaking into and
flooding the mine, Gwyn dreaming in addition that he behaved in a very
gallant way. For he seemed to find the hole through which the water
passed in, and stopped it by thrusting in his arm, which stuck fast,
and, try how he would, he could not extricate it, but stood there with
the water gradually stifling him, and preventing him from calling aloud
for help.

The heat and darkness at last rescued him from his perilous position--
that is to say, he awoke to find himself lying upon his back with his
face beneath the clothes; and these being thrown off, he saw that the
morning sunshine was flooding the bedroom, and the memory of the
troublous dream rapidly died away.

CHAPTER FORTY THREE.

AFTER A LAPSE.

"That makes the fourth," said Colonel Pendarve, tossing a letter across
to his son in the office one morning when the mine was in full work;
"four proposals from Mr Dix, and I have had three at intervals from
that other legal luminary, Brownson. Seven applications to buy the mine
in two years, Gwyn. Yes, it will be two years next week since we began
mining, and in those two years you and Joe Jollivet have grown to be
almost men--quite men in some respects, though you don't shave yet."

"Yes, I do, father," said Gwyn, smiling.

"Humph!" ejaculated the Colonel, "then it's an utter waste of time.
There, answer that letter and say emphatically No."

The Colonel left the office, and Gwyn read the letter.

"Look here, Joe," he said; and Joe Jollivet, who had climbed up to six
feet in the past two years, slowly rose