ion,
would now and then wander to common everyday matters. Even the events of
that very afternoon occurred to him, and the beauteous form he had been
so much struck with passed in fancy before his eyes. "Would she pity his
fate?" he asked himself--"alas! no--how was she to know any thing about
it? Poor Frank, too," he thought, "what can he say to my unexpected, and
probably fatal accident? I fear all his philosophy will, at least this
time, fail of convincing him;--it is _all for the best_, but better for
myself, perhaps, than him, as far as chances of being saved go; for with
his little legs, it must have been all over with him some time before
this. But, gracious Heaven! may not such a catastrophe have already
happened to him?"

The start this last thought excited had well nigh proved fatal--a large
quantity of earth became detached even by this slight movement, and at
the same time caused a change of position, which, though very slight,
was yet sufficient to produce a fresh action on the muscles, previously
cramped from the unusual strain upon then, and thereby causing so much
pain, that the sufferer was nearly relaxing his hold, the retention of
which became more arduous every moment; whilst the time thus occupied
seemed prolonged to almost tenfold the term of its ordinary duration.
Never, therefore, was sound more welcome to his ears, than the hoarse
and agitated tone with which his friend, Frank Trevelyan, shouted out to
him down the mouth of the shaft; whilst the cheers with which his reply
was hailed from several persons who had already reached the spot,
assured him that the much-wished-for relief was at hand. Nor was there,
indeed, a moment then to lose; for even during the short time it took in
adjusting the rope, and getting ready a light, with which an adventurous
miner, well skilled in such matters, was about to descend, poor Vernon's
strength was rapidly declining; and, conscious of his increasing
weakness, he called out earnestly to those above to make haste, as he
could hold on no longer, and that the ground was fast slipping away from
under him. Anxiously indeed throbbed every breast during the interval
occupied by the miner's descent, and breathless was the suspense with
which each awaited the signal to pull away again upon the rope, which
had scarcely been given, when a heavy rumbling sound, followed by a
whirring noise, and terminating in a tremendous booming crash, whose
fearful din and uproar it is