s. After
a fall of several miles, as it appeared to us, the cage stopped, when,
peering through the wire lattice-work, we saw before us a dark passage,
upon one side of which hung a white board with a big "5" painted upon
it.

"Here you are," said the miner, stepping out of the cage and handing us
a lighted lamp. "Just walk straight along this drift about three hundred
feet--it's all plain sailing--and you'll find Tom Connor at work there.
I'm going on down to the seventh myself."

With that he stepped back into the cage, rang the bell, and vanished,
leaving us standing there eyeing each other a little dubiously at
finding ourselves left to our own guidance, four hundred feet below the
surface of the earth.

"I hadn't reckoned on that," said I. "I thought he was coming with us."

"So did I," replied Joe. "But it doesn't really matter. All we have to
do is to walk along this passage; so let's go ahead."

That our obliging friend had been right when he stated that it was "a
bit wet" down here was evident, for the drops of water from the roof of
the drift kept pattering upon our slickers, and presently, when we had
advanced something over half the distance, one of them fell plump upon
the flame of our lamp and put it out!

We stopped short, not knowing what pitfalls there might be ahead of us,
and each felt in all his pockets for a match. We had none! Never
anticipating any such contingency as this, we had ventured into this
black hole without a match in our possession.

I admit that we were scared--the darkness was so very dark and the
silence so very silent--but fortunately it was only for a moment.
Standing stock still, for, indeed, we dared not move, we shouted for
Tom, when, to our infinite relief, we heard his familiar voice call out:

"Hallo, there! That you, Patsy? I'm coming. Does the boss want me?"

The next moment a light appeared moving towards us, and as soon as we
could safely do so we advanced to meet it.

"How are you, Tom?" we both cried, simultaneously, assuming an off-hand
manner, as though we had not been scared a bit.

Tom stopped, not recognizing us for a moment, and then exclaimed:

"Hallo, boys! What are you doing down here? Who brought you down?"

We told him how we came to be there, and how our lamp had gone out; at
which Tom shook his head.

"Well, it was certainly a smart trick to send you down into this wet
hole and not even see that you had a match in your pocket. What would
y