and the dark impeded rather than
helped the stranger on his way towards them. The feet of thousands of
people, who had visited the spot since the news of the accident was made
known, had worn away the last blade of grass from the slippery fields
and had left a very Slough of Despond behind them. I was down half a
dozen times, and when I reached the hovel where the rescue-party had
gathered I was as much like a mud statue as a man. Everything was in
readiness, and the descent was made at once.

We were under the command of Mr. Walter Ness, a valiant Scotchman, who
afterwards became the manager of her Majesty's mines in Warora, Central
India. Five or six of us huddled together on the 'skip,' the word was
given, and we shot down into the black shaft, which seemed in the light
of the lamps we carried as if its wet and shining walls of brick rushed
upwards whilst we kept stationary. In a while we stopped, with a black
pool of water three or four fathoms below us.

'This 'll be the place,' said one of the men, and tapped the wall with a
pick.

'Yes,' said Mr. Ness, 'that will be about the place; try it.'

The man lay down upon his stomach upon the floor of the skip and worked
away a single brick, which fell with a splash into the pool below. Then
out came another and another, until there was a hole there big enough
for a man to crawl through. We had struck upon an old disused airway
which led into the inner workings of the mine. One by one we snaked our
way from the skip into the hole; and, whatever the miners thought about
it, it was rather a scarey business for me. We all got over safely
enough and began a journey on all fours through mud and slush five or
six inches deep. Here and there the airway was lofty enough to allow us
to walk with bent heads and rounded shoulders. Sometimes it was so low
that we had to go snakewise. There was one place where the floor and
roof of the passage had sunk so that we actually had to dive for it.
This seemed a little comfortless at the time, but it saved our lives
afterwards. After a toilsome scramble we came upon the stables, and
found there the first dead body.

It was that of a lad named Edward Colman, who had met his death in a
curious and dreadful manner. He was sitting on a rocky bench, and at his
feet lay a rough hunch of bread and meat and a clasp-knife. He had heard
evidently the cry of alarm, had sprung to his feet, and had struck the
top of his head with fatal force agains