Here there was a dull scrambling noise, a violent struggle as of feet and hands against a wall, and then a heavy thud.

“Now that is very foolish of you, Solomon, to attempt to get out of a place which you yourself informed me could never be escaped from without wings.  I sincerely hope you have not hurt yourself much.  I hear you moving slowly about again, so I may leave you without anxiety.  Good-by, Solomon.”  Richard waited a moment, a frightful figure of hate and triumph, peering down into the pit beneath, where all was now dark.  “You are too proud to speak to a convict, perhaps.  Well, well, that is but natural in so honest a man.  I take my leave, then.  You have no message, I conclude, for home?”

An inarticulate cry, like that of a wild animal caught in a snare, was the only reply.

“That is the worst of letting his candle go out,” mused Richard, aloud; “some rat has got hold of him already.”  Then, with a steady foot and smiling face, which showed how all his previous fears had been assumed, he retraced his steps, and mounted to the upper air.  The sky was clearer now; and, casting the torch, for which he had no further need, far into the mine, and shouldering the ladder, he started for Gethin at good speed.  It was past two o’clock before he reached his inn at Turlock; but before he retired to rest he sat down to the supper that had been prepared for him, but without the appetite which he had anticipated.

CHAPTER XLIII.

THE SMOKING-ROOM OF THE GEORGE AND VULTURE.

Robert Balfour did not remain at Turlock, as he had originally intended.  Perhaps the vicinity to Wheal Danes was not so attractive to him as he had promised himself that it would be, although not for a single instant did his purpose of revenge relax.  Other considerations, had he needed them, were powerful, now that he had taken the first step, to keep him on that terrible path which he had so long marked out for himself.  To disclose the position of his victim now would have been not only to make void his future plans, but to place his own fate at Solomon’s mercy.  Yet he found his heart less hard than the petrifaction it had undergone, the constant droppings of wrong and hardship for twenty years, should have rendered it.  He did not wake until late, and the first sound that broke upon his ear was the tinkling of the bell of the little church, for it was Sunday morning.  He compared it for a moment with something that he had been dreaming of:  a man in a well chipping footsteps for himself in the brick wall, up which he climbed a few feet, and then fell down again.  Then a pitiful, unceasing cry of “Help, help!—­help, help!” rang in his ears, instead of the voice that called people to prayers.  Even when that ceased, the wind and rain—­for the weather was wild and wet—­beating against the window-pane, brought with them doleful shrieks.  Sometimes a sudden gust seemed to bear upon it confused