19

down in the copper mines

lucy-ann looked round her fearfully as if she half expected to seesomebody hiding behind a rock.

‘i don’t like to think there may be people here we don’t know anythingabout,’ she said.

‘don’t be silly,’ said jack. they’re down in the mines. shall we go downthis shaft now, and see what we can discover?’

the girls didn’t like the look of it, but lucy-ann felt that it would beworse to stay up above ground than it would be to go down and keep withthe boys. so she said she would go, and dinah, who wasn’t going to be leftall alone, promptly said she would go too.

philip spread the map of the underground mines out on the ground, andthey all knelt down and studied it. ‘see – this shaft goes down to the centreof a perfect maze of passages and galleries,’ said philip. ‘shall we take thispassage here? – it’s a sort of main road, and leads to the mines that wereworked right under the sea.’

‘oh no, don’t let’s go there,’ said lucy-ann, in alarm. but the other threevoted to go there, so the matter was decided.

‘now, kiki, if you come with us, you are not to make a noise,’ warnedjack. ‘else, if we go anywhere near the miners, they will hear you, and weshall be discovered. see?’

‘eena meena mina mo,’ said kiki solemnly, and scratched her poll hard.

‘you’re a silly bird,’ said jack. ‘now mind what i’ve told you – don’tyou dare to screech or shout.’

they went to the head of the shaft. they all peered down, feeling rathersolemn. an adventure was exciting, but somehow this one seemed a bitfrightening, all of a sudden.

‘come on,’ said philip, beginning to go down the ladder. ‘nothing canhappen to us really, even if we are discovered. after all, we first came tothis island to see if we could find a great auk for freckles. even if we werecaught we could say that we’d keep our mouths shut. if the men are friendsof bill smugs, they must be decent fellows. we can always say we are hisfriends.’

they all began to climb down the long, long shaft. before they werehalfway down they wished they had never begun their descent. they hadnot guessed they would have to go so far. it was like climbing down to themiddle of the earth, down, down, down in the darkness, which was lit nowby the beams from four torch lights.

‘everyone all right?’ asked philip, rather anxiously. ‘i should think wemust be near the bottom now.’

‘my arms are terribly tired,’ said poor lucy-ann, who was not so strongas the others. dinah was as big and strong as any boy, but lucy-ann wasnot.

‘stop a little and rest,’ said jack. ‘golly, kiki feels heavy on myshoulder. that’s because my arms are a bit tired too, i expect, with holdingon to the ladder-rungs.’

they rested a little and then went on downwards. then philip gave a lowexclamation.

‘i say! i’m at the bottom!’

with great thankfulness the others joined him. lucy-ann promptly satdown on the ground, for her knees were aching now, as well as her arms.

philip flashed his torch around.

they were in a fairly wide passage. the walls and ceiling were of rock,gleaming a coppery colour in the light of the torches. from the mainpassage branched many galleries or smaller passages.

‘we’ll do as we said and keep to this main passage, which looks like asort of main road of the mines,’ said philip.

jack flashed his torch down a smaller passage. ‘look!’ he said. ‘the roofhas fallen in there. we couldn’t go down that way if we wanted to.’

‘golly, i hope the roof of this passage won’t fall in on top of us,’ saidlucy-ann, looking up at it in alarm. in places it was propped up by bigtimbers, but mostly it was of hard rock.

‘come on – we’re safe enough,’ said jack impatiently. ‘i say – isn’t itthrilling to be hundreds of feet below the earth, down in a copper mine asold as the hills!’

‘it’s funny that the air is quite good here, isn’t it?’ said dinah,remembering the musty-smelling air in the secret passage at craggy-tops.

‘there must be good airways in these mines,’ said philip, trying toremember how the airways in coal mines worked. ‘that’s one of the firstthings that men think about when they begin to work mines underground –how to get draughts of air moving down the tunnels they make – andchannels to drain off any water that might collect and flood the mine.’

‘i’d hate to work in a mine,’ said lucy-ann, shivering. ‘philip, are weunder the sea yet?’

‘not yet,’ said philip. ‘about halfway there, i should think. hallo, here’sa well-worked piece – quite a big cave!’

the passage suddenly opened out into a vast open cave that showedmany signs of being worked by men. marks of tools stood out here andthere in the rock, and jack, with a delighted exclamation, darted to a cornerand picked up what looked like a small hammer-top made of bronze.

‘look,’ he said proudly to the others. this must be part of a broken toolused by the ancient miners – it’s made of bronze – a mixture of copper andtin. my word, won’t the boys at school envy me this!’

that made the others look around eagerly as well, and lucy-ann made adiscovery that interested everybody very much. it was not an ancient bronzetool – it was a stub of pencil, bright yellow in colour.

‘do you know who this belongs to?’ said lucy-ann, her green eyesgleaming in the torchlight like a cat’s. ‘it belongs to bill smugs. i saw himwriting notes with it the other day. i know it’s bill’s.’

‘then he must have been down here and dropped it by accident,’ saidphilip, thrilled. ‘golly, our guess was right then! he’s no bird-watcher –he’s living on the coast with his car and his boat because he’s friends withthe men working this old mine, and brings them food and stuff. artful oldbill – he never told us a word about it.’

‘well, you don’t go blabbing everything out to children you meet,’ saiddinah. ‘well, well – how surprised he would be if he knew we knew hissecret! i wonder if he’s down here now?’

‘course not, silly,’ said philip, at once. ‘his boat wasn’t on the shore,was it? and there’s no other way of getting here except by boat.’

‘i forgot that,’ said dinah. ‘anyway – i don’t feel afraid of meeting thesecret miners now that we know they are friends of bill’s. all the same, wewon’t let them know we’re here if we can help it. they might think thatchildren couldn’t be trusted, and be rather cross about it.’

they examined the big cave closely. the ceiling was propped up with bigold timbers, some of them broken now, so that the roof was graduallyfalling in. a number of hewn out steps led to a cave above, but the roof ofthat had fallen in and the children could not get into it.

‘do you know what i think?’ said jack suddenly, stopping to face theothers behind him, as they examined the cave, ‘i believe that light i saw outto sea the other night wasn’t from a ship at all – it was from this island. theminers were giving a signal to say that they had finished their food andwanted more – and the light from the cliff was flashed by bill to say he wasbringing more.’

‘yes – but the light came from our cliff, not from bill’s cliff,’ objectedphilip.

‘i know – but you know jolly well that it’s only from the highest part ofthe cliff that anyone signalling from the cove side of the island could beseen,’ said jack. ‘if somebody stood on that hill in the middle of the islandand made a bonfire or waved a powerful lamp, it could only be seen fromour cliff, and not from bill’s. so bill must have gone to our cliff that nightand answered the signal.’

‘i believe you’re right,’ said philip. ‘old bill must have been wanderingabout that night, behind craggy-tops – and you saw his signalling light andso did joe. no wonder old joe says there are “things” wandering about atnight and is scared of them! he must often have heard bill and seen lights,and not known what they were.’

‘i expect bill went off to the island in his boat, as soon as he could, withfresh food,’ said jack. ‘and he took away the pile of old tins. that explainswhy it is they are gone. artful old bill! what a fine secret he has – and weare the only people who know it!’

‘i do wish we could tell him we know it,’ said lucy-ann. ‘i don’t seewhy we can’t. i’m sure he’d rather know that we knew it.’

‘well – we could sort of say a few things that will make him guess weknow it, perhaps,’ said philip. ‘then if he guesses, he’ll own up, and we’llhave a good talk about the mines, and bill will tell us all kinds of excitingthings.’

‘yes, that’s what we’ll do,’ said jack. ‘come on – let’s explore a bitfurther. i feel as if i know this cave by heart.’

the passage swerved suddenly to the left after a bit, and philip’s heartgave a thump. he knew, by the map, that when the main passage swervedleft, they were going under the sea-bed itself. it was somehow very thrillingto be walking under the deep sea.

‘what’s that funny noise?’ asked dinah. they all listened. there was acurious, far-off booming noise that never stopped.

‘miners with machines?’ said philip. then he suddenly knew what itwas. ‘no – it’s the sea booming away above our heads! that’s what it is!’

so it was. the children stood and listened to the muffled, faraway noise.

boom-boooom, boom. that was the sea, moving restlessly over the rockybed, maybe pounding over rocks in its way, talking with its continual,rhythmical voice.

‘it’s funny to be under the sea itself,’ said lucy-ann, half frightened. sheshivered. it was so dark, and the noise was so strange.

‘isn’t it awfully warm down here?’ she said, and the others agreed withher. it certainly was hot down in the old copper mines.

they went on their way down the passage, keeping to the main one, andavoiding all the many galleries that spread out continually sideways, whichprobably led to other workings of the big mines.

‘if we don’t keep to this main road, we’ll lose ourselves,’ said philip, andlucy-ann gave a gasp. it had not occurred to her that they might get lost.

how awful to go wandering about miles of mine-workings, and never findthe shaft that led them upwards!

they came to a place where, quite suddenly, a brilliant light shone. thechildren had rounded a corner, noticing, as they came to it, that a glimmerof light seemed to show there. as they turned the corner of the passage theycame into a cave lighted by a powerful lamp. they stopped in the greatestsurprise.

then a noise came to their ears – a queer noise, not the muffled boom ofthe sea, but a clattering noise that they couldn’t recognise – then a bang,then a clattering noise again.

‘we’ve found where the miners work,’ said jack, in an excited whisper.

‘keep back a bit. we may see them – but we don’t want them to see us!’