measure or count of the hours that passed.

Then a fever of impatience possessed him; his thoughts, springing
suddenly to life, were too wildly improbable for any sane mind, were
driving him mad. He forced himself to move cautiously.

* * * * *

On the floor he had seen burnished gold, shining dully as he entered.
There had been a thick vein of yellow in the rock. The floor, at that
place, was rough beneath his feet, as if the hot metal had been
spilled.

His hands groped before him as he remembered the heaps of rock
fragments. Then his feet found one of them stumblingly, and he turned
and moved to one side. He remembered having seen a dim shape off there
that had made a straight slanting line. His searching hands
encountered the object and kept him from walking into it.

The feeling of helplessness that drove him was only being increased by
his blind and blundering movements. He told himself that he must wait.

Silently he stood where he had come to a stop, hands resting on the
object that barred his way--until suddenly, stiflingly, his breath
caught in his throat. Some emotion, almost too great to be borne, was
suffocating him.

Slowly he moved his hands. Inch by inch he felt his way around the
smooth cylinder, so hard, so coldly metallic. Then, with a rush, he
let his hands follow up the slanting thing, up to a rounded top, to a
heavy ring and a shackle that was on the end of a cable, thin and
taut. And, while his hands explored it feverishly, the metal moved!

* * * * *

He clung to the smooth roundness as it slipped through his hands. It
was the bailer, part of his own equipment. That slender cable reached
up, straight up to the world he knew. And Smithy was there--Smithy was
hoisting it!

He clung to the cylinder desperately. The bore, at this depth, had
been reduced to eight inches; the bailer fitted it loosely. And Rawson
cursed frantically the narrow space that would let this inanimate
object return but would hold him back, while he wrapped his arms about
the cold surface of the metal messenger from another world.

It lifted clear, then settled back. This time it dropped noisily to
the floor. And suddenly Dean was tearing at the ring on one of the
swollen fingers of his left hand.

It came free at last; it was in his hand as the cable tightened again.
Swiftly, surely, he worked in the darkness to jam the ring through the
shackle at th