The Underground City; Or, The Black Indies (Sometimes Called The Child of the Cavern). Jules Verne
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like being at the mouth of some extinct volcano.
When the mine was being worked, ingenious machines were used in certain shafts of the Aberfoyle colliery, which in this respect was very well off; frames furnished with automatic lifts, working in wooden slides, oscillating ladders, called “man-engines,” which, by a simple movement, permitted the miners to descend without danger.
But all these appliances had been carried away, after the cessation of the works. In the Yarrow shaft there remained only a long succession of ladders, separated at every fifty feet by narrow landings. Thirty of these ladders placed thus end to end led the visitor down into the lower gallery, a depth of fifteen hundred feet. This was the only way of communication which existed between the bottom of the Dochart pit and the open air. As to air, that came in by the Yarrow shaft, from whence galleries communicated with another shaft whose orifice opened at a higher level; the warm air naturally escaped by this species of inverted siphon.
“I will follow you, my lad,” said the engineer, signing to the young man to precede him.
“As you please, Mr. Starr.”
“Have you your lamp?”
“Yes, and I only wish it was still the safety lamp, which we formerly had to use!”
“Sure enough,” returned James Starr, “there is no fear of fire-damp explosions now!”
Harry was provided with a simple oil lamp, the wick of which he lighted. In the mine, now empty of coal, escapes of light carburetted hydrogen could not occur. As no explosion need be feared, there was no necessity for interposing between the flame and the surrounding air that metallic screen which prevents the gas from catching fire. The Davy lamp was of no use here. But if the danger did not exist, it was because the cause of it had disappeared, and with this cause, the combustible in which formerly consisted the riches of the Dochart pit.
Harry descended the first steps of the upper ladder. Starr followed. They soon found themselves in a profound obscurity, which was only relieved by the glimmer of the lamp. The young man held it above his head, the better to light his companion. A dozen ladders were descended by the engineer and his guide, with the measured step habitual to the miner. They were all still in good condition.
James Starr examined, as well as the insufficient light would permit, the sides of the dark shaft, which were covered by a partly rotten lining of wood.
Arrived at the fifteenth landing, that is to say, half way down, they halted for a few minutes.
“Decidedly, I have not your legs, my lad,” said the engineer, panting.
“You are very stout, Mr. Starr,” replied Harry, “and it’s something too, you see, to live all one’s life in the mine.”
“Right, Harry. Formerly, when I was twenty, I could have gone down all at a breath. Come, forward!”
But just as the two were about to leave the platform, a voice, as yet far distant, was heard in the depths of the shaft. It came up like a sonorous billow, swelling as it advanced, and becoming more and more distinct.
“Halloo! who comes here?” asked the engineer, stopping Harry.
“I cannot say,” answered the young miner.
“Is it not your father?”
“My father, Mr. Starr? no.”
“Some neighbor, then?”
“We have no neighbors in the bottom of the pit,” replied Harry. “We are alone, quite alone.”
“Well, we must let this intruder pass,” said James Starr. “Those who are descending must yield the path to those who are ascending.”
They waited. The voice broke out again with a magnificent burst, as if it had been carried through a vast speaking trumpet; and soon a few words of a Scotch song came clearly to the ears of the young miner.
“The Hundred Pipers!” cried Harry. “Well, I shall be much surprised if that comes from the lungs of any man but Jack Ryan.”
“And who is this Jack Ryan?” asked James Starr.
“An old mining comrade,” replied Harry. Then leaning from the platform, “Halloo! Jack!” he shouted.
“Is that you, Harry?” was the reply. “Wait a bit, I’m coming.” And the song broke forth again.
In a few minutes, a tall fellow of five and twenty, with a merry face, smiling eyes, a laughing mouth, and sandy hair, appeared at the bottom of the luminous cone which was thrown from his lantern, and set foot on the landing of the fifteenth ladder. His first act was to vigorously wring the hand which Harry extended to him.
“Delighted to meet you!” he exclaimed. “If I had only known you were to be above ground to-day, I would have spared myself going down the Yarrow shaft!”
“This is Mr. James Starr,” said Harry, turning his lamp towards the engineer, who was in the shadow.
“Mr. Starr!” cried Jack Ryan. “Ah, sir, I could not see. Since I left the mine, my eyes have not been accustomed to see in the dark, as they used to do.”
“Ah, I remember a laddie who was always singing. That was ten years ago. It was you, no doubt?”
“Ay, Mr. Starr, but in changing my trade, I haven’t changed my disposition. It’s far better to laugh and sing than to cry and whine!”
“You’re right there, Jack Ryan. And what do you do now, as you have left the mine?”
“I am working on the Melrose farm, forty miles from here. Ah, it’s not like our Aberfoyle mines! The pick comes better to my hand than the spade or hoe. And then, in the old pit, there were vaulted roofs, to merrily echo one’s songs, while up above ground!—But you are going to see old Simon, Mr. Starr?”
“Yes, Jack,” answered the engineer.
“Don’t let me keep you then.”
“Tell me, Jack,” said Harry, “what was taking you to our cottage to-day?”
“I wanted to see you, man,” replied Jack, “and ask you to come to the Irvine games. You know I am the piper of the place. There will be dancing and singing.”
“Thank you, Jack, but it’s impossible.”
“Impossible?”
“Yes; Mr. Starr’s visit will last some time, and I must take him back to Callander.”
“Well, Harry, it won’t be for a week yet. By that time Mr. Starr’s visit will be over, I should think, and there will be nothing to keep you at the cottage.”
“Indeed, Harry,” said James Starr, “you must profit by your friend Jack’s invitation.”
“Well, I accept it, Jack,” said Harry. “In a week we will meet at Irvine.”
“In a week, that’s settled,” returned Ryan. “Good-by, Harry! Your servant, Mr. Starr. I am very glad to have seen you again! I can give news of you to all my friends. No one has forgotten you, sir.”
“And I have forgotten no one,” said Starr.
“Thanks for all, sir,” replied Jack.
“Good-by, Jack,” said Harry, shaking his hand. And Jack Ryan, singing as he went, soon disappeared in the heights of the shaft, dimly lighted by his lamp.
A quarter of an hour afterwards James Starr and Harry descended the last ladder, and set foot on the lowest floor of the pit.
From the bottom of the Yarrow shaft radiated numerous empty galleries. They ran through the wall of schist and sandstone, some shored up with great, roughly-hewn beams, others lined with a thick casing of wood. In every direction embankments supplied the place of the excavated veins. Artificial pillars were made of