what I said--to let them know we're here. They answered
before, but I suppose voices travel a long way."

"Sometimes," said the man, with a strange laugh.

"Shout, then; your voice is louder than ours," said Gwyn.

"What's the good o' shouting? They're miles away somewhere."

"No, no, you heard them answer."

"No I didn't," said the man, contemptuously; "that was only eckers."

"What?" cried Gwyn, with his heart seeming to stand still.

"Eckers. Hark here."

He put his hand to his mouth, and proved the truth of his words.

"Sam!"

"_Sam_!" very softly.

"Har!"

"_Har_!"

"Dock!"

"_Dock_!"--the echo coming some moments after the calls in a peculiar
weird way.

"Sam 'Ardock!" shouted Dinass then, with a loudness and suddenness which
made the boys start.

"_Dock_!" came back from evidently a great distance, giving such an idea
of mystery and depth that the boys could hardly repress a shudder.

"Only eckers," said the man; "and as old Sam Hardock would say, `it's a
gashly great unked place,' but I think there's some tin in it. Look
there and there!"

He held up the lanthorn he carried close to the roof, which sparkled
with little purply-black grains running in company with a reddish bloom,
as if from rouge, amongst the bright quartz of the tunnel.

"Oh, never mind the tin," cried Joe. "Pray, pray go on; we're losing
time."

"Yes, make haste," said Gwyn. "We'd better keep straight along here,
and stop and shout at every opening or turning."

"Yes, that will be right," said Joe. "Only do keep on. My father is so
weak from his illnesses, that I'm afraid he has broken down. I ought
not to have let him come."

The words seemed strangely incongruous, and made Gwyn glance at his
companion; but it was the tender nurse speaking, who had so often waited
upon the Major through his campaign-born illnesses, and there was no
call for mirth.

Onward they went along the rugged tunnel, which wound and zigzagged in
all directions, the course of the ancient miners having been governed by
the track of the lode of tin; and soon after they came to where a vein
had run off to their left, and been laboriously cut out with chisel,
hammer, and pick.

They shouted till the echoes they raised whispered and died away in the
distance; but there was nothing to induce them to stay, and they went on
again, to pause directly after by an opening on their right, where they
again shouted in turn till they were hoarse,