without illuminating anything. We saw no reflection
from rocky point or gleaming water, and our feeling of awe was
increased.

"I'll have another try, anyhow," said Tom. "Ears will sometimes tell us
what eyes won't. Just lend a hand here, Mas'r Harry."

For a moment or two I shrank from assisting him, on seeing his object,
but directly after applied one hand to a rough block of stone that lay
at our side, weighing, I should think, a hundred pounds.

We had about a couple of yards to move it, and then it rested upon the
very brink, a shrinking sensation coming over me as I saw Tom stand,
candle in hand, with one foot resting upon the rock ready to thrust it
over.

"Now, then, Mas'r Harry," he said, "this'll find the bottom if anything
will. We shall soon know now. Say when!"

I did not speak, for I was wondering whether that rough block was going
down where that I coveted had been cast, and for a moment I was about to
restrain Tom; but I thought that the fall of that stone would teach me
whether the bottom was at an attainable depth or no, and I signed to Tom
to thrust the fragment off.

"Over, Mas'r Harry?"

"Over!" I said in a whisper; and the next moment there was a grating
noise and the stone had been thrust off to fall--fall--fall in silence,
while with awe-stricken countenances we leaned over the gulf and
listened, second after second, without avail, for no sound came up.

"It's gone bang through to the other side of the world, Mas'r Harry!"
whispered Tom. "There ain't no end to this place, for if it had been
ever so deep you must have heard it touch bottom some time. Ain't it
awful!"

It was awful, and a hand seemed clutching my heart as I thought of
falling, ever falling like that, or of some enemy dashing me over into
the fearful gulf. There seemed to be indeed no bottom within ordinary
range, and the idea of descending by rope in search there of treasure
was absurd.

How long the stone had been falling I cannot say; but just as we had
given up all thought of hearing of it more there came from the depths
below a faint whisper of a splash, or of some pebble falling in water,
but only for that whisper to be echoed and re-echoed from distant parts
till it increased to a fearful roar that was some seconds in dying away.

It was impossible to help a shudder upon hearing those horrible
reverberations, each one telling of the awful profundity of the place--
one which, without extensive mining ap