And then I was suddenly at the sloping. I could hear the water pouring down the slope of the rocks to the sea far below. And right above me was that little pin-point of light that marked the top of a shaft.
The relief made me feel weak at the knees. I stood there for a moment, steadying myself and gazing up at that distant circle of light. What a difference it made to feel that I was in contact with the world above ground! It made even the darkness bearable.
Then I switched on the torch again and felt with my boot for the first of the iron staples. I found the wooden stump of the sloping timber. The staple was just above it, but I couldn't seem to find it. Perhaps in my excitement I was feeling in the wrong place. I took a firm grip at the handhold I had and felt farther out. But there was nothing, only the rotten stump of timber. I stepped back into the arch of the gallery then and leaned out with my torch glowing dimly against the rock above the stull.
There was no staple. Nor was there a staple above the next baulk of timber.
At first I thought this sloping must be different to the one I had crossed before. But there was the tiny pin-point of light high up above me and the slopping of the sea below. The rock formation was the same, too. I might be in the same cutting, but higher or lower than when I'd crossed before. Bui surely that fall of rock would not have been duplicated with the ledge running back and up to the narrow cleft that ran into granite country? I went back down the gallery to see. It was the same fall all right. When I returned to the slope I knell down and leaned out, shining my torch on to the place in the rock where I thought a staple should have been.
A ragged hole showed in a cleft. The iron of the staple had marked the rock and dirt was pressed back on either side. The staple had been knocked back and forth until it had fallen out.
It was then that my torch began to flicker. It hardly gave any light at all. I switched it off. Here, thank God, was not complete darkness. I could look up to that little circle of moonlight. Remote though it was, I derived some comfort from it.
I got a match from my pocket, struck it and leant far out. Its flickering light showed me that the next staple was also missing, and the next after that. They had been there when I had followed Manack across the slope. Now they had been prised out. It could mean only one thing. Manack had known I was following him. He had been waiting for me at each bend. He had deliberately taken me up into the old part of the mine. Then he had doubled back and crossed the stoping, knocking the staples out behind him. My God, what a devil! That was murder. It wouldn't seem like it. But that's what it was. And I remember thinking again — a man who would cold-bloodedly throw a dog down a shaft would do anything. I sat down on the floor of the gallery with my legs dangling over the abyss and considered what to do. I was quite calm now. I wasn't lost any more. I knew my way back to the pump and the main shaft from here. All I had to do was get across that twenty foot gap. That was a problem I could understand. I wasn't scared any more. There was nothing to frighten me about it. I wasn't facing the unknown now. This was a reality, something I could understand. Manack had tried to kill me. Indirectly he had attempted to murder me. And all that stood between me and safety was twenty feet of bare, sloping rock. It was my wits against his.
When I had rested a while I started out to do the only thing possible. I switched my torch on, I found a foothold and a handhold and swung out of the gallery on to the rock face, the torch gripped in my mouth. The rock was not quite sheer — an angle of about eighty degrees, I should say — and pressing my body close to the wet face of it, I was able to relieve the strain on my limbs. The trouble was that the rock was slimy with water and fingers and boots were inclined to slip. Below me the sea slopped about noisily as though licking its lips in expectation of my fall.
I worked steadily out across the gap from handhold to handhold. Sometimes my feet were firmly set in a crevice or on a jutting rock, sometimes they dangled uselessly. At the fifth handhold I could find no place for my foot to grip. I hung there by my hands, searching in the dim flickerings of the torch for the next hold. But I couldn't see one. I searched about with my feet. There was nothing but smooth rock. I hung by one hand and felt out with the left. There was no handhold and no foothold, just the slimy surface of the rock. I had to go back then.
I tried climbing up. I got a little way and nearly stuck. My elbow joints were quivering with the strain by the time I regained the gallery. I sat down then with my back against the rock wall of the gallery. I'd try again later. But first I had to rest. I felt utterly exhausted. I seemed to have been stumbling through the workings of this mine for a lifetime. Yet it was only half-past eleven.
I tried to relax. My clothes were wet and uncomfortable. I wasn't cold. The air, though dark, was quite warm. I just felt dirty, wet and tired. Damn that blasted old man! What was the idea? Why had he wanted to kill me? What was he afraid of?
My limbs soon began to grow stiff. My clothes clung to me in a sodden mass. I began to shiver. I wasn't consciously cold, just wet. I got to my feet. I had to get across that gap. I tried climbing down and along under the stoping. But again I reached a point where there were no hand or footholds. Coming back my foot slipped and the sudden strain on my hands caused one of them to slide on the wet rock. I hung for a moment by one hand and only just managed to find a crevice with my boot. It was with great difficulty that I climbed back into the gallery.
After that I knew it was no use. I had to find a way round. But my torch was finished now. The pale glimmer of light was only sufficient to reveal the rock face when held a few inches from it. I felt my way back to the fall of soft rock, from the ledge, climbed it, crawled into the tunnel and took the first crosscut to the left. Creeping along with my hands on either wall, I took another turning to the left. It sloped down and a moment later the floor fell away from under my feet. I risked one of my precious matches here. The gallery dropped almost sheer for about fifteen feet and then levelled out again. I scrambled down and went on. The gallery forked and I took the left and was brought up in a few yards by a fall. I struck another match. There was no way through. I went back and tried the right fork. Again a fall and at the cost of still another match I discovered the gallery was completely blocked.
I went back, scrambling up the steep part in the dark. I tried another gallery and another. One ended in a shaft, the other in a blank wall of rock. I had only five matches left now. And suddenly I got scared I wouldn't find my way back to the sloping. At least there was a gleam of hope there. I took a wrong turning first time. I tried again in a sweat of fear. This time I came out through the tunnel on to the fall of soft rock. And so back to the sloping with that little pin-point of light high, high above me.
I sat there, shivering and listening to the sound of water. Perhaps daylight would show a gleam of light on the sea water below. If not… That didn't bear thinking about. Nobody knew I was down here. I could just stay here and rot.
And then suddenly I sat up. I thought I heard a voice, very faint and distant. There it was again. A long, echoing call. I must be going mad. It was like a woman's voice. I listened, but it didn't come again. I sat back. It was possible to imagine all sorts of sounds in the dripping of the water. I thought of the stories old tinners had told up in my father's shack in the Rockies, stories of goblins working underground, of the spirit of Gathon and sudden flares and lights. 'Wherever there do be a lode o' tin, thee's sure to hear strange noises,' I remember one grizzled old miner saying. But they never spoke of a woman's voice.