the wheel overhead began to revolve;
then the skep dropped quickly and silently down through the square hole
in the rough plank floor formed over the great open shaft, the pump
being now still. Then, all at once, as the boys caught at the stout
railing about the opening and looked down, the lanthorns taken began to
glow softly and grew brighter for a time; then the light decreased,
growing more and more feeble till it was almost invisible, and Gwyn drew
a deep breath and looked up at the revolving wheel.

"Seems precious venturesome, doesn't it?" observed Joe.

"Not half so bad as going down with a rope round you, and feeling it
coming undone," said Gwyn.

"No, but you did have water to fall into," said Joe. "If the wire rope
breaks, they'll fall on the stone bottom and be smashed."

"Ah, yes," said Dinass, in solemn tones. "Be a sad business that."

"Will you be quiet, Tom Dinass!" cried Gwyn, irritably. "You're always
croaking about the mine."

"Nay, sir, not me," replied the man. "It were Mr Joe here as begun
talking about the rope breaking and their coming down squelch."

"Well, don't let anybody talk about such things," said Gwyn, who spoke
as if he had been running hard. "Nearly down now, aren't they?"

"About half, sir," said the engineer.

"Oh, I don't want to talk," said Dinass; "only one can't help thinking
it's queer work for two gents to do. It's a job for chaps like me.
Howsoever, I hope they won't come to no harm."

Grip growled at something, as if, in fact, he were resenting the man's
words, but it might have only been that he was being troubled by the
flea which he had several times that morning tried to scratch out of his
thick coat.

"You'd better not let them come to harm. I say, mind they don't come
down bang at the bottom," said Gwyn, after what seemed to be a long
time.

"He'll see to that, sir," said the man, nodding his head in the
direction of the engineer.

"Yes, young gentlemen, that's all right. I've got the depth to an inch,
and they'll come down as if on to a spring."

"I say, how deep it seems," said Joe, who also was rather breathless.

"Deep, sir!" said Dinass, with a laugh; "you don't call this deep? Why,
it's nothing to some of the pits out Saint Just way--is it, mate?"

"Nothing at all," said the engineer. "This is a baby."

"Rather an old baby," said Gwyn, smiling. "Why, this must be the oldest
mine in Cornwall."

"Dessay it is, sir," said the man; a