ide of the shaft
for support.

As second after second dragged itself away, until it was finally
certain that sixty of them had passed, and that sentence had been
pronounced in his favor, the young miner sank to his knees and framed,
as best he could, a prayer of gratitude. How long he thus remained in
grateful contemplation of his narrow escape from death he never knew,
but he was at length aroused by a shout from above, and, looking up,
saw an approaching light twinkling like a star of good promise through
the blackness. The call that came to him was one of anxious
uncertainty; but, as his answering shout sped upward, it was changed
to an exultant cry of joy. Then came cheer after cheer as the skip
slowly descended until it finally reached the bottom, and a solitary
figure sprang from it.

[Illustration: PEVERIL LEAPED DOWN AMONG THE SPUTTERING FUSES]

This person acted like a crazy man, first flinging his arms about
Peveril, and then falling on his knees at the young man's feet, with
a torrent of words in which praise and gratitude were mingled with
pleas for forgiveness. He was Peveril's recent companion and avowed
enemy, who, after the former had leaped from the skip, had leaned
weakly over its side and watched with fascinated gaze the struggle for
life going on below him. Ere it was ended, the hoisting-machinery
began again to work, and the skip was suddenly impelled upward with
breathless speed.

Those who witnessed its safe arrival at the surface had their
congratulations changed to exclamations of dismay by the discovery
that it contained but a single occupant. Though the time-limit for the
explosion was already passed, and though Mike Connell begged them to
send him down again at once, they refused to do so until another full
minute should elapse. During its slow passage they crowded about the
shaft-mouth in breathless silence, listening with strained ears for
the awful sound they so dreaded to hear.

Even with the minute of safety passed, it was not certain that the
explosion might not yet occur; but the young Irishman demanded so
fiercely to be instantly lowered to the very bottom that they finally
consented to do as he desired. Several were even willing to accompany
him, but he waved these back and insisted upon going alone.

He had to meet the man to whom he owed his life, as well as a shameful
confession of cowardly acts, and he preferred to meet him alone. Two
minutes later he was at the bottom of