He looked grimly at the young man as he came briskly forward with a gay smile.

‘Ye’re a verra early bird,’ he said, fondling his frill of white hair, and looking keenly at the tall, slim figure of the Frenchman.

‘Case of “must”, my friend,’ returned Vandeloup, coolly; ’it’s only rich men can afford to be in bed, not poor devils like me.’

‘You’re no muckle like ither folk,’ said the suspicious old Scotchman, with a condemnatory sniff.

‘Of that I am glad,’ retorted Vandeloup, with suavity, as he walked beside him to the men’s quarters.  ’What a horrible thing to be the duplicate of half-a-dozen other men.  By the way,’ breaking off into a new subject, ‘Madame Midas is charming.’

‘Aye, aye,’ said Archie, jealously, ’we ken all aboot they French-fangled way o’ gieing pretty words, and deil a scrap of truth in ony o’ them.’

Gaston was about to protest that he said no more than he felt, which was indeed the truth, but Archie impatiently hurried him off to breakfast at the office, as he declared himself famishing.  They made a hearty meal, and, having had a smoke and a talk, prepared to go below.

First of all, they arrayed themselves in underground garments—­not grave clothes, though the name is certainly suggestive of the cemetery—­which consisted of canvas trousers, heavy boots, blue blouses of a rough woollen material, and a sou’wester each.  Thus accoutred, they went along to the foot of the poppet heads, and Archie having opened a door therein, Vandeloup saw the mouth of the shaft yawning dark and gloomy at his feet.  As he stood there, gazing at the black hole which seemed to pierce down into the entrails of the earth, he turned round to take one last look at the sun before descending to the nether world.

This is quite a new experience to me,’ he said, as they stepped into the wet iron cage, which had ascended to receive them in answer to Archie’s signal, and now commenced to drop down silently and swiftly into the pitchy darkness.  ’It puts me in mind of Jules Verne’s romances.’

Archie did not reply, for he was too much occupied in lighting his candle to answer, and, moreover, knew nothing about romances, and cared still less.  So they went on sliding down noiselessly into the gloom, while the water, falling from all parts of the shaft, kept splashing constantly on the top of the cage and running in little streams over their shoulders.

‘It’s like a nightmare,’ thought the Frenchman, with a nervous shudder, as he saw the wet walls gleaming in the faint light of the candle.  ‘Worthy of Dante’s “Inferno".’

At last they reached the ground, and found themselves in the main chamber, from whence the galleries branched off to east and west.