Sappers and Miners | Page 9

eyes closed in the hot sunshine, glad of the darkness to
shut out the horror of the scene around him; for the bright blue sky,
with the soft-winged grey gulls floating round and round above their
heads, and the far-spreading silver and sapphire sea, were dominated
by the mouth of the horrible pit, from which with strained senses he
kept on expecting to hear the faint cries of his companion for help.
But all was very still, save the soft, low hum of the bees busily probing
the heath bells for honey in the beautiful, wild stretch of granite
moorland, and the black darkness was for the unhappy boy alone.
For the knowledge was forced upon him that he could do no more. He
felt that after the first minute Gwyn's position must have been hopeless,
and he lay there perfectly still now in his despair, when Hardock rose

slowly, and began to haul in the line, hand over hand, coiling it in rings
the while, which rings lay there in the hot sunshine, dry enough till
quite a hundred-and-fifty feet had been drawn on, and then it came up
dripping wet fully fifty feet more, the mining captain drawing it tightly
through his hands to get rid of the moisture.
"Bad job--bad job!" he groaned, "parted close to the end--close to the
end--close to the end--well, I'll be hanged!"
He began in a low, muttering way, quite to himself, and ended with a
loud ejaculation which made Joe sit up suddenly and stare.
"What is it?" he cried wildly. "Hear him?"
"Hear him? No, my lad, nor we aren't likely to. But look at that."
He 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