you coming, Zackey?" shouted Penrose, from the end of the level.

"Iss, I'm comin'," replied the boy, taking the fuse from the shelf, and
hastening towards his companion.

Penrose had a peculiar and pleased expression on his countenance, which
Zackey observed at once.

"What do 'ee grizzle like that for?" inquired the boy.

"I've come on a splendid bunch of copper, Zackey," replied the man; "you
and I shall make money soon. Run away to your work, lad, and come back
when you hear the shot go off."

Zackey expressed a hope that the prophecy might come true, and returned
to his cell, where he continued pounding diligently--thinking the while
of rich ore and a rapid fortune.

There was more reason in these thoughts than one might suppose, for
Cornish miners experience variety of fortune. Sometimes a man will
labour for weeks and months in unproductive ground, following up a small
vein in the hope of its leading into a good lode, and making so little
by his hard toil that on pay day of each month he is compelled to ask
his employer for "subsist"--or a small advance of money--to enable him
to live and go on with his work. Often he is obliged to give up in
despair, and change to a more promising part of the mine, or to go to
another mine altogether; but, not unfrequently, he is rewarded for his
perseverance by coming at last to a rich "lode," or mass, or "bunch" of
copper or tin ore, out of which he will rend, in a single month, as much
as will entitle him to thirty or forty, or even a hundred pounds, next
pay day.

Such pieces of good fortune are not of rare occurrence. Many of the
substantial new cottages to be seen in St. Just at the present day have
been built by miners who became suddenly fortunate in this way, so that,
although the miner of Cornwall always works hard, and often suffers
severe privation, he works on with a well-grounded expectation of a
sudden burst of temporal sunshine in his otherwise hard lot.

Zackey Maggot was dreaming of some such gleam of good fortune, and
patiently pounding away at the tamping, when he heard the explosion of
the blast. At the same moment a loud cry rang through the underground
caverns. It was one of those terrible, unmistakable cries which chill
the blood and thrill the hearts of those who hear them, telling of some
awful catastrophe.

The boy leaped up and ran swiftly towards the end of the level, where he
called to his companion, but received no answer. The smok