Externally nothing was changed. The same silence around. Not a living creature was moving in that desert region. Jack entered the ruined shed which covered the opening of the shaft. He gazed down into the dark abyss--nothing was to be seen. He listened--nothing was to be heard.
"And my lamp!" he exclaimed; "suppose it isn"t in its place!" The lamp which Ryan used when he visited the pit was usually deposited in a corner, near the landing of the topmost ladder. It had disappeared.
"Here is a nuisance!" said Jack, beginning to feel rather uneasy. Then, without hesitating, superst.i.tious though he was, "I will go," said he, "though it"s as dark down there as in the lowest depths of the infernal regions!"
And he began to descend the long flight of ladders, which led down the gloomy shaft. Jack Ryan had not forgotten his old mining habits, and he was well acquainted with the Dochart pit, or he would scarcely have dared to venture thus. He went very carefully, however. His foot tried each round, as some of them were worm-eaten. A false step would entail a deadly fall, through this s.p.a.ce of fifteen hundred feet. He counted each landing as he pa.s.sed it, knowing that he could not reach the bottom of the shaft until he had left the thirtieth. Once there, he would have no trouble, so he thought, in finding the cottage, built, as we have said, at the extremity of the princ.i.p.al pa.s.sage.
Jack Ryan went on thus until he got to the twenty-sixth landing, and consequently had two hundred feet between him and the bottom.
Here he put down his leg to feel for the first rung of the twenty-seventh ladder. But his foot swinging in s.p.a.ce found nothing to rest on. He knelt down and felt about with his hand for the top of the ladder. It was in vain.
"Old Nick himself must have been down this way!" said Jack, not without a slight feeling of terror.
He stood considering for some time, with folded arms, and longing to be able to pierce the impenetrable darkness. Then it occurred to him that if he could not get down, neither could the inhabitants of the mine get up. There was now no communication between the depths of the pit and the upper regions. If the removal of the lower ladders of the Yarrow shaft had been effected since his last visit to the cottage, what had become of Simon Ford, his wife, his son, and the engineer?
The prolonged absence of James Starr proved that he had not left the pit since the day Ryan met with him in the shaft. How had the cottage been provisioned since then? The food of these unfortunate people, imprisoned fifteen hundred feet below the surface of the ground, must have been exhausted by this time.
All this pa.s.sed through Jack"s mind, as he saw that by himself he could do nothing to get to the cottage. He had no doubt but that communication had been interrupted with a malevolent intention. At any rate, the authorities must be informed, and that as soon as possible. Jack Ryan bent forward from the landing.
"Harry! Harry!" he shouted with his powerful voice.
Harry"s name echoed and re-echoed among the rocks, and finally died away in the depths of the shaft.
Ryan rapidly ascended the upper ladders and returned to the light of day. Without losing a moment he reached the Callander station, just caught the express to Edinburgh, and by three o"clock was before the Lord Provost.
There his declaration was received. His account was given so clearly that it could not be doubted. Sir William Elphiston, President of the Royal Inst.i.tution, and not only colleague, but a personal friend of Starr"s, was also informed, and asked to direct the search which was to be made without delay in the mine. Several men were placed at his disposal, supplied with lamps, picks, long rope ladders, not forgetting provisions and cordials. Then guided by Jack Ryan, the party set out for the Aberfoyle mines.
The same evening the expedition arrived at the opening of the Yarrow shaft, and descended to the twenty-seventh landing, at which Jack Ryan had been stopped a few hours previously. The lamps, fastened to long ropes, were lowered down the shaft, and it was thus ascertained that the four last ladders were wanting.
As soon as the lamps had been brought up, the men fixed to the landing a rope ladder, which unrolled itself down the shaft, and all descended one after the other. Jack Ryan"s descent was the most difficult, for he went first down the swinging ladders, and fastened them for the others.
The s.p.a.ce at the bottom of the shaft was completely deserted; but Sir William was much surprised at hearing Jack Ryan exclaim, "Here are bits of the ladders, and some of them half burnt!"
"Burnt?" repeated Sir William. "Indeed, here sure enough are cinders which have evidently been cold a long time!"
"Do you think, sir," asked Ryan, "that Mr. Starr could have had any reason for burning the ladders, and thus breaking of communication with the world?"
"Certainly not," answered Sir William Elphiston, who had become very thoughtful. "Come, my lad, lead us to the cottage. There we shall ascertain the truth."
Jack Ryan shook his head, as if not at all convinced. Then, taking a lamp from the hands of one of the men, he proceeded with a rapid step along the princ.i.p.al pa.s.sage of the Dochart pit. The others all followed him.
In a quarter of an hour the party arrived at the excavation in which stood Simon Ford"s cottage. There was no light in the window. Ryan darted to the door, and threw it open. The house was empty.
They examined all the rooms in the somber habitation. No trace of violence was to be found. All was in order, as if old Madge had been still there. There was even an ample supply of provisions, enough to last the Ford family for several days.
The absence of the tenants of the cottage was quite unaccountable. But was it not possible to find out the exact time they had quitted it? Yes, for in this region, where there was no difference of day or night, Madge was accustomed to mark with a cross each day in her almanac.
The almanac was pinned up on the wall, and there the last cross had been made at the 6th of December; that is to say, a day after the arrival of James Starr, to which Ryan could positively swear. It was clear that on the 6th of December, ten days ago, Simon Ford, his wife, son, and guest, had quitted the cottage. Could a fresh exploration of the mine, undertaken by the engineer, account for such a long absence? Certainly not.
It was intensely dark all round. The lamps held by the men gave light only just where they were standing. Suddenly Jack Ryan uttered a cry.
"Look there, there!"
His finger was pointing to a tolerably bright light, which was moving about in the distance. "After that light, my men!" exclaimed Sir William.
"It"s a goblin light!" said Ryan. "So what"s the use? We shall never catch it."
The president and his men, little given to superst.i.tion, darted off in the direction of the moving light. Jack Ryan, bravely following their example, quickly overtook the head-most of the party.
It was a long and fatiguing chase. The lantern seemed to be carried by a being of small size, but singular agility.
Every now and then it disappeared behind some pillar, then was seen again at the end of a cross gallery. A sharp turn would place it out of sight, and it seemed to have completely disappeared, when all at once there would be the light as bright as ever. However, they gained very little on it, and Ryan"s belief that they could never catch it seemed far from groundless.
After an hour of this vain pursuit Sir William Elphiston and his companions had gone a long way in the southwest direction of the pit, and began to think they really had to do with an impalpable being. Just then it seemed as if the distance between the goblin and those who were pursuing it was becoming less. Could it be fatigued, or did this invisible being wish to entice Sir William and his companions to the place where the inhabitants of the cottage had perhaps themselves been enticed. It was hard to say.
The men, seeing that the distance lessened, redoubled their efforts. The light which had before burnt at a distance of more than two hundred feet before them was now seen at less than fifty. The s.p.a.ce continued to diminish. The bearer of the lamp became partially visible. Sometimes, when it turned its head, the indistinct profile of a human face could be made out, and unless a sprite could a.s.sume bodily shape, Jack Ryan was obliged to confess that here was no supernatural being. Then, springing forward,--
"Courage, comrades!" he exclaimed; "it is getting tired! We shall soon catch it up now, and if it can talk as well as it can run we shall hear a fine story."
But the pursuit had suddenly become more difficult. They were in unknown regions of the mine; narrow pa.s.sages crossed each other like the windings of a labyrinth. The bearer of the lamp might escape them as easily as possible, by just extinguishing the light and retreating into some dark refuge.
"And indeed," thought Sir William, "if it wishes to avoid us, why does it not do so?"
Hitherto there had evidently been no intention to avoid them, but just as the thought crossed Sir William"s mind the light suddenly disappeared, and the party, continuing the pursuit, found themselves before an extremely narrow natural opening in the schistous rocks.
To trim their lamps, spring forward, and dart through the opening, was for Sir William and his party but the work of an instant. But before they had gone a hundred paces along this new gallery, much wider and loftier than the former, they all stopped short. There, near the wall, lay four bodies, stretched on the ground--four corpses, perhaps!
"James Starr!" exclaimed Sir William Elphiston.
"Harry! Harry!" cried Ryan, throwing himself down beside his friend.
It was indeed the engineer, Madge, Simon, and Harry Ford who were lying there motionless. But one of the bodies moved slightly, and Madge"s voice was heard faintly murmuring, "See to the others! help them first!"
Sir William, Jack, and their companions endeavored to reanimate the engineer and his friends by getting them to swallow a few drops of brandy. They very soon succeeded. The unfortunate people, shut up in that dark cavern for ten days, were dying of starvation. They must have perished had they not on three occasions found a loaf of bread and a jug of water set near them. No doubt the charitable being to whom they owed their lives was unable to do more for them.
Sir William wondered whether this might not have been the work of the strange sprite who had allured them to the very spot where James Starr and his companions lay.
However that might be, the engineer, Madge, Simon, and Harry Ford were saved. They were a.s.sisted to the cottage, pa.s.sing through the narrow opening which the bearer of the strange light had apparently wished to point out to Sir William. This was a natural opening. The pa.s.sage which James Starr and his companions had made for themselves with dynamite had been completely blocked up with rocks laid one upon another.
So, then, whilst they had been exploring the vast cavern, the way back had been purposely closed against them by a hostile hand.
CHAPTER X. COAL TOWN
THREE years after the events which have just been related, the guide-books recommended as a "great attraction," to the numerous tourists who roam over the county of Stirling, a visit of a few hours to the mines of New Aberfoyle.
No mine in any country, either in the Old or New World, could present a more curious aspect.