CHAPTER XLVII.

WHAT WAS FOUND IN WHEAL DANES.

A full half hour—­which to the watchers above seemed a much longer interval—­had elapsed since Richard had disappeared in the depths of Wheal Danes, and not a sign of his return had reached the attentive throng.

“I thought he’d come to harm,” muttered a fisherman to his neighbor; “it was a sin and a shame to let him venture.”

“Ay, you may say that,” returned the other, aloud.  “I call it downright murder in them as sent him.”

“It was not I as sent him,” observed the inn-keeper, with the honest indignation of a man that has not right habitually on his own side.  “What I said to the gentleman was, ‘Wait till morning.’  Why should I send him?” Here he stopped, though his reasons for not wishing to hurry matters would have been quite conclusive.

“Why was he let to go down at all, being a stranger?” resumed the first speaker.  “Why didn’t somebody show him the way?”

“Because nobody knowed it,” answered one of the four miners whose services Richard had retained, and who justly imagined that the fisherman’s remark had been a reflection on his own profession.  “I’d ha’ gone down Dunloppel with him at midnight, or any other mine as can be called such; but this is different.”

“Ay, ay, that’s so,” said a second miner.  “We know no more of this place than you fishermen.  There may be as much water in it as in the sea, for aught we can tell.”

“It’s my belief they’re more afraid of the Dead Hand than the water,” observed a voice from the crowd, the great majority of which was composed of fisher folk.

No reply was given to this; perhaps because the speaker, an old cripple, the Thersites of the village, was beneath notice, perhaps because the remark was unanswerable.  The miners were bold enough against material enemies, but they were superstitious to a man.

“If Solomon Coe were alive,” continued the same voice, “he wouldn’t ha’ feared nothin’.”

“That’s the first word, old man, as ever I heard you speak in his favor,” said a miner, contemptuously; “and you’ve waited for that till he’s dead.”

“Still, he would ha’ gone, and you durstn’t,” observed the old fellow, cunningly, “and that’s the p’int.”

These allusions to the Dead Hand and to the missing Solomon were not of a nature to inspire courage in those to whom it was already lacking, and a silence again ensued.  There was less light, for a torch or two had gone out, and the mine looked blacker than ever.

“Well, who’s a-going down?” croaked the old cripple.  “The gentleman came from your inn, Jonathan, and it’s your place, I should think, to look after him.”

“Certainly not,” answered the inn-keeper, hastily.  “These men here were hired for this very service.”

“That’s true,” said the first miner.  “But what’s the use of talking when the gentleman has got the ladder with him?”