if I went on, there were the shafts ready to swallow me
up: and what with fear and the howling and raging of the wind, I
was like a mazed boy, sir. And I knelt down and tried to pray; and
then, in one moment, all the evil things I'd ever done, and the bad
words and thoughts that ever crossed me, rose up together as clear
as one page of a print-book; and I knew that if I died that minute I
should go to hell. And then I saw through the ground all the water
in the shafts glaring like blood, and all the sides of the shafts
fierce red-hot, as if hell was coming up. And I heard the knockers
knocking, or thought I heard them, as plain as I hear that
grasshopper in the hedge now.'

'What are the knockers?'

'They are the ghosts, the miners hold, of the old Jews, sir, that
crucified our Lord, and were sent for slaves by the Roman emperors
to work the mines; and we find their old smelting-houses, which we
call Jews' houses, and their blocks of tin, at the bottom of the
great bogs, which we call Jews' tin; and there's a town among us,
too, which we call Market-Jew--but the old name was Marazion; that
means the Bitterness of Zion, they tell me. Isn't it so, sir?'

'I believe it is,' said Lancelot, utterly puzzled in this new field
of romance.

'And bitter work it was for them, no doubt, poor souls! We used to
break into the old shafts and adits which they had made, and find
old stags'-horn pickaxes, that crumbled to pieces when we brought
them to grass; and they say, that if a man will listen, sir, of a
still night, about those old shafts, he may hear the ghosts of them
at working, knocking, and picking, as clear as if there was a man at
work in the next level. It may be all an old fancy. I suppose it
is. But I believed it when I was a boy; and it helped the work in
me that night. But I'll go on with my story.'

'Go on with what you like,' said Lancelot.

'Well, sir, I was down on my knees among the furze-bushes, and I
tried to pray; but I was too frightened, for I felt the beast I had
been, sir; and I expected the ground to open and let me down every
moment; and then there came by over my head a rushing, and a cry.
"Ha! ha! ha! Paul!" it said; and it seemed as if all the devils and
witches were out on the wind, a-laughing at my misery. "Oh, I'll
mend--I'll repent," I said, "indeed I will:" and again it came
back,--"Ha! ha! ha! Paul!" it said. I knew afterwards that it was
a