to work out a
certain number of fathoms of ore for himself.

They agreed to this, but one of them expressed some doubt as to Maggot's
courage being equal to the occasion.

To this remark Maggot vouchsafed no other reply than a frown, but his
friend and admirer John Cock exclaimed in supreme contempt,--"What!
Maggot afear'd to do it! aw, my dear, hould tha tongue."

"But he haven't bin to see the place," urged the previous speaker.

"No, my son," said Maggot, turning on the man with a look of pity, "but
he can go an' see it. Come, lads, lev us go an' see this place of
danger."

The miners rose at once as Maggot threw his forehammer on a heap of
coals, put on his hat, and strode out of the forge with a reckless
fling. A few minutes sufficed to bring them to the beach at the mouth
of the adit.

It was a singularly wild spot, close under those precipitous cliffs on
which some of the picturesque buildings of Botallack mine are perched--a
sort of narrow inlet or gorge which from its form is named the Narrow
Zawn. There was nothing worthy of the name of a beach at the place,
save a little piece of rugged ground near the adit mouth, which could be
reached only by a zigzag path on the face of the almost perpendicular
precipice.

Arrived here, each man lighted a candle, wrapped the customary piece of
wet clay round the middle of it, and entered the narrow tunnel. They
advanced in single file, James Penrose leading. The height of the adit
permitted of their walking almost upright, but the irregularity of the
cuttings rendered it necessary that they should advance carefully, with
special regard to their heads. In about a quarter of an hour they
reached a comparatively open space--that is to say, there were several
extensions of the cutting in various directions, which gave the place
the appearance of being a small cavern, instead of a narrow tunnel.
Here the water, which in other parts of the adit flowed along the
bottom, ran down the walls and spirted in fine streams from the almost
invisible crevices of the rock, thus betraying at once the proximity and
the power of the pent-up water.

"What think'ee now, my son?" asked an elderly man who stood at Maggot's
elbow.

After a short pause, during which he sternly regarded the rocks before
him, the smith replied, "_I'll do it_," in the tone and with the air of
a man who knows that what he has made up his mind to do is not child's
play.

The question being thus sett