Sappers and Miners | Page 9

held out the wet end of the rope, showing how it was neatly bound with copper-wire to keep it from fraying out and unlaying.
"Well," said Joe, "what is it?"
"Can't yer see, boy?"
"The rope's end? Yes."
"Can't yer see it aren't broke?"
"Yes, of course. Why, it did not part, Sam!" cried Joe, excitedly.
"Nay; it did not part."
"Then it came untied," cried Joe, frantically. "Oh, Sam!"
CHAPTER FOUR.
JOE HEARS A CRY.
"Here, what's the good o' your shouting at me like that, my lad? Think things aren't bad enough for me without that?" cried the man, in an ill-used tone.
"You did not tie it properly."
"Yes, I did, lad, so don't go saying such a word as that. I made that rope fast round him quite proper."
"No, or it wouldn't have come untied. And you boasted as you did! Why, you've murdered him. Oh, Sam, Sam, Sam!"
"Will you be quiet?" cried the man, who was trembling visibly. "Don't you turn again' me. You were in the business, too. You helped, my lad; and if I murdered him, you were as bad as me."
"It's too cruel--too cruel!" groaned Joe.
"And you turning again' me like that!" cried Hardock. "You shouldn't run back from your mate in a job, my lad," said the man, excitedly. "I tied him up in the reg'lar, proper knot, and you calls me a murderer. Just what his father would say to me if I give him a chance. It's a shame!"
"We trusted you, both of us, because you were a man, and we thought you knew what was right!"
"And so I did know what was right, and did what was right; that there rope wouldn't have never come undone if he hadn't touched it. He must have got fiddling it about and undone it hissen. It warn't no doing o' mine!"
"Shame! Oh, you miserable coward!" cried Joe, starting to his feet now in his indignant anger.
"Mizzable coward! Oh, come, I like that!" cried Hardock. "Who's a coward?"
"Why, you are; and you feel your guilt. Look at you shivering, and white as you are."
"Well, aren't it enough to make any man shiver and look white, knowing as that poor lad's lying dead at the bottom of that big hole?"
Joe groaned, and took hold of the rope's end.
"How could he have undone the knot, swinging as he was in the air? You know well enough it was not properly tied."
"But it was!" cried Hardock, indignantly. "I tied it carefully mysen, just as I should have done if I'd been going down."
"Don't use that knot again, then," said Joe, bitterly. "I wish--oh! how I wish you had let me go down instead."
"What?" cried the man. "Why, you'd ha' been drowned i'stead o' he."
"I wish I had been. It would have been better than having to go to the Colonel to tell him--I can't do it!" cried the boy, passionately. "I can't do it!"
"Then come along o' me, my lad."
"Where?"
"I d'know. Somewheres where they don't know about it. We can't stay here and face it. It's too horrid. You can't face the Colonel and his lady. Ah! they're quite right; the mine is an unlucky one, and I wish I'd never spoke about it; but it seemed a pity for such a good working to go to waste. But they all say it's unlucky, and full o' all kinds o' wicked, strange critters, ghosts and goblins, and gashly things that live underground to keep people from getting the treasure. I used to laugh to myself and say it was all tomfoolery, and old women's tales; but it's true enough, as I know now, to my sorrow."
"How do you know?" cried Joe, angrily.
"By him going. It warn't he as undid the rope--it was one o' they critters, as a lesson to us not to 'tempt to go down. I see it all clear enough now."
"Bah!" cried Joe, fiercely, "such idiotic nonsense! Let me tie the rope round myself, and I'll go down and try and find him. I don't believe in all that talk about the mine being haunted. I've heard it before."
"Course you have, my lad. But let you go down? Nay, that I won't. Poor young Gwyn Pendarve's drownded, same as lots of poor fellows as went out healthy and strong in their fishing-boats have been drownded, and never come back no more. It's very horrid, but it's very true. He aren't the first by a long chalk, and he won't be the last by a many. It's done, and it can't be undone. But it's a sad job."
"Let me go down, Sam," pleaded Joe, humbly now.
"Nay, I'm too much of a mizzable coward, my lad. I don't want to leave you and lose you."
"But you wouldn't," cried the boy. "I should tie the knot too tight."
"I don't know as yer could tie a better knot