I guess you'd better be going back with it, dear;
Reynolds will be needing it."

Accordingly, with the spade in one hand and the lamp in the other, I
started to retrace my steps to the hoisting cage. The sound of the
drill that father was now plying vigorously followed me, becoming
muffled, rather than fainter in the distance as I proceeded. From the
various tunnels, branching off to the right and left, came the sound
of other drills, and, occasionally, the plaintive "hee-haw" of one of
the half-dozen or more little Andalusian mules used in hauling the
loaded cars to and from the ore dumps near the hoisting cage. With all
these sounds I was more or less familiar, but to-day, underneath them
all, it seemed to me that there were others, myriads of them. To my
lively young fancy the silence teemed with mysterious noises; low
groans and sighing whispers that wandered bodiless through dark
tunnels, dripping with a soft, unusual ooze. Knowing that Reynolds was
in a hurry for the spade I hastened along, listening and speculating,
until coming opposite one of the side extensions I was suddenly taken
with the whim to see if its walls were as damp as those of the tunnel
that I was then standing in. I turned into it accordingly, but stopped
doubtfully after a few yards. Holding the lamp aloft I looked
inquiringly along the walls. Damp! I understood now why my father wore
a coat, a circumstance that had already impressed itself upon my mind
as being very unusual among these underground workers. The water was
almost running down the sides of the rocky tunnel, and the light of my
lamp was reflected back at me in a thousand sliding, mischievous
drops.

"Where does it all come from?" I thought, laying my hand on the face
of the rock before which I stood. My hand had touched it for a single
heart-beat, no more, when I felt the color go out of my face, leaving
me with wide, staring eyes, while I stood trembling and ghastly white
in the breathless gloom. Like one suddenly bereft of all power of
speech or motion I stared mutely at the black wall before me. I had
felt the rock move!

Standing there in that awful darkness, hundreds of feet underground, I
understood what had happened, what was happening, and, dumb with the
horror of that awful knowledge, stood motionless. All the stories that
I had ever heard or read of sudden irruptions of water in mines, of
dreadful cavings-in, flashed into my mind, and then, breaking the
paralyzing tra