“No!” said Rudolph, stung as by some perfidy.  “You make me—­ashamed!  This is all ours, this part, so!”

“Can do,” laughed the other.  “Get off your jacket.  Give me half a moment start, so that you won’t jump on my head.”  And he went wriggling down into the pit.

An unwholesome smell of wet earth, a damp, subterranean coolness, enveloped Rudolph as he slid down a flue of greasy clay, and stooping, crawled into the horizontal bore of the tunnel.  Large enough, perhaps, for two or three men to pass on all fours, it ran level, roughly cut, through earth wet with seepage from the river, but packed into a smooth floor by many hands and bare knees.  It widened suddenly before him.  In the small chamber of the mine, choked with the smell of stale betel, he bumped Heywood’s elbow.

“Some Fragrant Ones have been working here, I should say.”  The speaker patted the ground with quick palms, groping.  “Phew!  They’ve worked like steam.  This explains old Wutz, and his broken arrow.  I say, Rudie, feel about.  I saw a coil of fuse lying somewhere.—­At least, I thought it was.  Ah, never mind:  have-got!” He pulled something along the floor.  “How’s the old forearm I gave you?  I forgot that.  Equal to hauling a sack out?  Good!  Catch hold, here.”

Sweeping his hand in the darkness, he captured Rudolph’s, and guided it to where a powder-bag lay.

“Now, then, carry on,” he commanded; and crawling into the tunnel, flung back fragments of explanation as he tugged at his own load.  “Carry these out—­far as we dare—­touch ’em off, you see, and block the passage.  Far out as possible, though.  We can use this hole afterward, for listening in, if they try—­”

He cut the sentence short.  Their tunnel had begun to slope gently downward, with niches gouged here and there for the passing of burden-bearers.  Rudolph, toiling after, suddenly found his head entangled between his leader’s boots.

“Quiet,” he heard him whisper.  “Somebody coming.”

An instant later, the boots withdrew quickly.  An odd little squeak of surprise followed, a strange gurgling, and a succession of rapid shocks, as though some one were pummeling the earthen walls.

“Got the beggar,” panted Heywood.  “Only one of ’em.  Roll clear, Rudie, and let us pass.  Collar his legs, if you can, and shove.”

Squeezing past Rudolph in his niche, there struggled a convulsive bulk, like some monstrous worm, too large for the bore, yet writhing.  Bare feet kicked him in violent rebellion, and a muscular knee jarred squarely under his chin.  He caught a pair of naked legs, and hugged them dearly.

“Not too hard,” called Heywood, with a breathless laugh.  “Poor devil—­must think he ran foul of a genie.”

Indeed, their prisoner had already given up the conflict, and lay under them with limbs dissolved and quaking.

“Pass him along,” chuckled his captor.  “Make him go ahead of us.”