It was the first man-made chamber they had seen. The walls were running with water, wet and shining; the roof dripped incessantly, but only one small pool of water gathered on the floor; the rest ran off in a central chamber and apparently into the solid rock.

“The dripping of water wears away stone,” quoted Harry, and pointed to the floor with its tiny saucer-shaped depression.

There was no sign of a door at either entrance, and he went ahead of her through the arched entrance, covered a few yards, and stopped, looking upwards.

“Daylight!” he said.

The first thing of which she was conscious was that, away from the little room, she was warm again.

The shaft that worked upwards was a natural fissure. They could see the rough edges of rock jutting out at intervals. In some places it was wide enough to hold a full-sized man; in other places it was so narrow that only an arm could have reached through. But there it was, the clear, uninterrupted view of the sky, and the girl beheld a phenomenon with which miners are familiar, the view of a white, winking star, in broad daylight.

“That is where the air comes from,” said Harry. “Now we’ll try where this passage leads.”

It led to a blank wall of solid rock, he found. They stared at one another in the darkness.

“We must try back,” said Harry.

Hardly were the words out of his mouth than there was a distant rumble and roar, the ground beneath their feet shook, and down the passageway through which they had reached the Cold Room swept a cloud of flying dust.

“Wait,” he said, and flew along the passage.

He was gone a few minutes before he returned. She could not see his face except from the reflected light he threw upon the floor to guide him on his way.

“The roof has fallen in,” he said, and there was a tremor in his voice. “I am afraid, Leslie, we are finished!”

61

A hot bath and a meal, though every morsel seemed to choke him, restored Dick Alford to something like himself. There was hope – faint indeed, but still hope. He had despatched his bailiff in search of explosives, but explosives cannot be bought over the counter like cheese and bacon. He had a telephone message from the man to say that he was on his way to London and would return with the necessary apparatus. Dick’s plan was simple; even then a derrick was being rigged over the well; his plan was to dynamite the wall of the well and to get into the gallery.