on.

"Any more coming?"

"No, Captain Dan," replied the man, glancing with some curiosity at the
tall stranger.

"Now, sir, we shall descend," said the captain, entering the shaft.

Oliver followed, and at once plunged out of bright sunshine into subdued
light. A descent of a few fathoms brought them to the bottom of the
first ladder. It was a short one; most of the others, the captain told
him, were long ones. The width of the shaft was about six feet by nine.
It was nearly perpendicular, and the slope of the ladders corresponded
with its width--the head of each resting against one side of it, and the
foot against the other, thus forming a zigzag of ladders all the way
down.

At the foot of the first ladder the light was that of deep twilight.
Here was a wooden platform, and a hole cut through it, out of which
protruded the head of the second ladder. The Captain struck a light,
and, applying it to one of the candles, affixed the same to the front of
Oliver's hat. Arranging his own hat in a similar way, he continued the
descent, and, in a few minutes, both were beyond the region of daylight.
When they had got a short way down, probably the distance of an
ordinary church-steeple's height below the surface, Oliver looked up and
saw the little opening far above him, shining brightly like a star. A
few steps more and it vanished from view; he felt that he had for the
first time in his life reached the regions of eternal night.

The shaft varied in width here and there; in most places it was very
narrow--about six feet wide--but, what with cross-beams to support the
sides, and prevent soft parts from falling in, and other obstructions,
the space available for descent was often not more than enough to permit
of a man squeezing past.

A damp smell pervaded the air, and there was a strange sense of
contraction and confinement, so to speak, which had at first an
unpleasant effect on Oliver. The silence, when both men paused at a
ladder-foot to trim candles or to rest a minute, was most profound, and
there came over the young doctor a sensation of being buried alive, and
of having bid a final farewell to the upper earth, the free air, and the
sunshine, as they went down, down, down to the depths below.

At last they reached a "level" or gallery, by which the ladder-shaft
communicated with the pump-shaft.

Here Captain Dan paused and trimmed Oliver's candle, which he had thrust
inadvertently against a beam, and b