he bodies moved slightly, and Madge's
voice was heard faintly murmuring, "See to the others! help them first!"

Sir William, Jack, and their companions endeavored to reanimate the
engineer and his friends by getting them to swallow a few drops of
brandy. They very soon succeeded. The unfortunate people, shut up in
that dark cavern for ten days, were dying of starvation. They must have
perished had they not on three occasions found a loaf of bread and a jug
of water set near them. No doubt the charitable being to whom they owed
their lives was unable to do more for them.

Sir William wondered whether this might not have been the work of the
strange sprite who had allured them to the very spot where James Starr
and his companions lay.

However that might be, the engineer, Madge, Simon, and Harry Ford were
saved. They were assisted to the cottage, passing through the narrow
opening which the bearer of the strange light had apparently wished to
point out to Sir William. This was a natural opening. The passage which
James Starr and his companions had made for themselves with dynamite had
been completely blocked up with rocks laid one upon another.

So, then, whilst they had been exploring the vast cavern, the way back
had been purposely closed against them by a hostile hand.

CHAPTER X. COAL TOWN

THREE years after the events which have just been related, the
guide-books recommended as a "great attraction," to the numerous
tourists who roam over the county of Stirling, a visit of a few hours to
the mines of New Aberfoyle.

No mine in any country, either in the Old or New World, could present a
more curious aspect.

To begin with, the visitor was transported without danger or fatigue to
a level with the workings, at fifteen hundred feet below the surface of
the ground. Seven miles to the southwest of Callander opened a slanting
tunnel, adorned with a castellated entrance, turrets and battlements.
This lofty tunnel gently sloped straight to the stupendous crypt,
hollowed out so strangely in the bowels of the earth.

A double line of railway, the wagons being moved by hydraulic power,
plied from hour to hour to and from the village thus buried in the
subsoil of the county, and which bore the rather ambitious title of Coal
Town.

Arrived in Coal Town, the visitor found himself in a place where
electricity played a principal part as an agent of heat and light.
Although the ventilation shafts were numerous, they