Tooley and his companions were waiting and listening to
hear from him.

For some time Derrick expected to reach a door, behind which he should
find a boy, or to meet a train of mule-cars, or a miner who would lead
him to the foot of the slope. At length, however, when he had walked a
long distance, and yet found none of these, his courage began to leave
him and a wild terror to take its place.

Suddenly, like a flash, it occurred to him that he had not struck any
rails in walking, nor felt any indications of a car-track. Filled with a
new dread, he stooped down, and with trembling hands felt every inch of
the wet floor from one side of the gangway to the other. There was no
sign of a track, and he knew, what he had already suspected, that it had
been torn up, and that he was in an abandoned gangway, which another
human being might not enter for years.

This revelation of the full horror of his situation was too much for the
overstrained nerves of the poor lad. He uttered a loud cry, which was
echoed and re-echoed with startling distinctness through the silent,
rock-walled gallery, flung himself on the wet floor, and burst into
bitter sobbings.

How long he lay there, in a sort of semi-stupor after this first
outburst of his despair, he had no means of knowing, but he was finally
roused into an attitude of eager attention by what sounded like a
distant murmur of voices. He sat up, and then sprang to his feet,
rubbing his eyes and staring in a bewildered manner into the darkness of
the gangway ahead of him. Did he see a light only a few paces before
him? It seemed so. Yet he was not sure, for it was not a direct ray, as
from a lamp, but a sort of dim, flickering radiance that appeared to
rise from the very floor almost at his feet.

For several minutes Derrick stared at it incredulously, unable to fathom
the mystery of its appearance. Was it a light produced by human agency,
or was it one of those weird illuminations that sometimes arise from the
dampness and foul air of old mines? He stepped towards it to satisfy
himself of its true character, and as he did so was confronted by a
danger so terrible that, although he had escaped it, his heart almost
stopped beating as he realized its full extent.

By the vague light proceeding from it he saw a pit-hole occupying the
entire width of the gangway, and apparently of great depth. Around its
edge had been built a barrier of logs breast-high. Through age these had
so dec