“Yes, he could,” replied the one who had first spoken.  “See, his ladder was short, and he may have pitched over.”

They stood and listened, peering down into the darkness beneath them; but there was no repetition of the cries.  The wounded man had apparently spent his last strength, perhaps his last breath, in uttering them.

“He must be down here somewhere.  Come on.”

The situation was sufficiently appalling; but these men had lost half their terrors, now that they knew there was a fellow-creature needing help.  They descended slowly; and he who was foremost presently cried out, “I see him; here he is.”

The man was lying on his face quite still; and when they lifted him, each looked at the other with a grave significance—­they had carried too many from the bowels of the earth to the pit’s mouth not to know when a man was dead.  Even a senseless body is not the same to an experienced bearer as a dead weight.  The corpse was still warm, but the head fell back with a movement not of life.

“You were right, mate.  His neck is broke; the poor gentleman pitched over on his head.”

“Stop a bit,” exclaimed the man addressed; “see here.  Why, it ain’t him at all—­it’s Solomon Coe.”

An exclamation of astonishment burst involuntarily from the other three.

“Then where’s the other?” cried they all together.

“I am here,” answered a ghastly whisper.

Within but a few feet of Solomon, so that they could hardly have overlooked him had not the former monopolized their attention, lay Richard, grievously hurt.  Some ribs were broken, and one of them was pressed in upon the lungs.  Still he was alive, and the men turned their attention first to him, since Solomon was beyond their aid.  By help of the two ladders, side by side, they bore him up the wall of rock; and so from level to level—­a tedious and painful journey to the wounded man—­to the upper air.

He was carried to the inn upon the mattress which his own care had provided for another; while the four miners, to the amazement of the throng, once more descended into the pit for a still more ghastly burden.

Richard could speak a little, though with pain.  By his orders a messenger was dispatched that night to Plymouth to telegraph the news of the discovery of her husband’s body to Mrs. Coe.  His next anxiety was to hear the surgeon’s report, not on his own condition, but on that of Solomon.  This gentleman did not arrive for some hours, and Richard was secretly well pleased at his delay.  It was his hope, for a certain reason, that he would not arrive until the body was stiff and cold.

He saw Richard first, of course.  The case was very serious; so much so that he thought it right to mention the fact, in order that his patient might settle his worldly affairs if they needed settlement.

“There is no immediate danger, my good Sir; but it is always well in such cases to have the mind free from anxiety.”