"Cut sticks--go like the devil! If it blows up, and caves the earth on
us--" Heywood ran on hands and knees, as if that were his natural way of
going. Rudolph scrambled after, now urged by an ecstasy of apprehension,
now clogged as by the weight of all the hill above them. If it should
fall now, he thought, or now; and thus measuring as he crawled, found
the tunnel endless.
When at last, however, they gained the bottom of the shaft, and were
hoisted out among their coolies on the shelving mound, the evening
stillness lay above and about them, undisturbed. The fuse could never
have lasted all these minutes. Their whole enterprise was but labor
lost. They listened, breathing short. No sound came.
"Gone out," said Heywood, gloomily. "Or else they saw it."
He climbed the bamboo scaffold, and stood looking over the wall. Rudolph
perched beside him,--by the same anxious, futile instinct of curiosity,
for they could see nothing but the night and the burning stars.
"Gone out. Underground again, Rudie, and try our first plan." Heywood
turned to leap down. "The Sword-Pen looks to set off his mine
to-morrow morning.
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