Richard Haddon was
entirely forgotten for the time being, and this concentration of mind and
energy served to carry the boy bravely over every obstacle.
Dick made his way through the opening he and Ted had fashioned, dropped
into the Red Hand drive beneath, and then turned with familiar feet and
hastened towards the shaft. A few centres had been knocked out and thrown
across the pit as a staging, so that access to the ladder was possible,
but not with out some risk. The boy paused at nothing, reached the iron
rungs with a bound, and started down the perpendicular ladder. Down, down
he went for many minutes, his candle feebly illuminating a blurred patch
about his head. Above, through a bewildering space of darkness, the
grated opening at the surface shone like a faint star in another sphere;
below was solid blackness; about him the slime of the dripping timbers
sparkled in the candle's rays. Down, down, down! The journey might have
seemed interminable--a long pilgrimage into the earth's black
distances--had the boy had a mind for it, but he thought nothing of the
task; at length his feet struck the slabs over the well, and turning he
flashed his light into the cavernous depth of a big drive.
He plunged into the drive without a pause, and now the way was familiar
again. Voyages of discovery made during crib time when he officiated as
tool boy in the Silver Stream had often brought him up the jump-up into
the Red Hand drive.
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