Almost at once Hanbury woke me, and I started up with a cry.
“Have you found?”
“Found be damned,” says George. “You’ve had five minutes over your time.”
So it was with us all: and we battled rather than laboured, fighting with nature, like madmen, in our effort to find the chamber before she could wear us down. For the pace was too hot to last: we all knew that: and unless we could win very soon, we were playing a losing game. Yet we went steadily on, like men in a dream, losing all count of Time and confusing Night with Day. Indeed, the demands of the battle so wholly possessed our senses that, used in some other direction, these were beginning to fail. We shouted, one to another, when a whisper could have been heard: the hand that could still ply a hammer, could not be trusted to raise a glass to the lips: and, if ever I glanced at my wristwatch, this seemed a great way off.
At a quarter past nine the next morning, our new shaft was eight yards deep. And this alone shows that we were beside ourselves, for, though we had cut down the width, relying upon the crowbar to make this good, such progress was superhuman. Yet, to advance this shaft further seemed little worth, and we started another tunnel out of its right-hand wall. This by Hanbury’s direction; for Mansel was resting, and we others knew no more where to turn than the man in the moon.
“Are you certain,” said I, “that we’re not too far to the left?”
“Certain,” said Hanbury. “Mansel will bear me out. The shaft from the well to the chamber is not so steep as we thought, so we’ve aimed too much to the right. You mark my words: if we don’t strike the chamber this time, we shall hit the shaft.”
Such confidence did us good: but, when I roused Mansel, I saw him tighten his lips, and I knew that he had been hoping to be sent for before his time.
I now know that I must have slept for nearly my hour, when I dreamed I was listening to Mansel broadcasting news and that a storm somewhere was blotting out what he said. I must have dreamed for some moments, for I was heavy with sleep, but at last I awoke, to find Tester barking like fury three feet away.
In an instant I had caught him up and had blundered through the postern to fall headlong over the breastwork with the dog in my arms. However I was up in a moment and made haste to close the gate: but I dared not fasten it closely, for fear of a bomb.
I had much ado to quiet Tester, who was seething with wrath; but, when I had done so and could listen, I heard no sound.
So we lay still for five minutes: then I heard Mansel’s voice.
“Are you at your post, Chandos?”
“I am,” said I.
“What happened?”
“I’ve no idea,” said I. “I woke up to find Tester barking, and that’s as much as I know.”
“Stay where you are,” said he.
Then he unmasked the searchlight and turned the beam on to the trap. Presently he raked the dungeon, letting the beam discover the timber and piles of earth.
At length—
“Let Tester go,” he said. “And you come in.”
The dog ran to him at once and jumped up to lick his face. Then he turned away and began to growl and bristle, with his eyes on the trap.
“Not much doubt about that,” said Mansel, stooping to make much of the dog. “Our friends have found the front door. I suppose they’re not quite ready, and that that’s why they shut it again. Well, we’re quite ready when they are, and, till then, we may as well work.”
Then he sent me to bathe and eat, and, when I came back, Hanbury was asleep in the dungeon, with Tester in the crook of his arm.
We gave no more time to the riddle, for in truth we had none to give. The business smacked of a nightmare: yet, our present life was a dream: and so, if we thought, we did not speak of it, but tacitly took it for granted that Mansel’s interpretation was good.
At six o’clock that evening we started another shaft.
The last we had driven five yards, and had sunk a three-feet crowbar into its nose. And found nothing. And so at six o’clock we started another shaft. This was driven from the nose of our second, so that our original tunnel would soon be a left-handed fork with three five-yard prongs.
And here I am bound to record that we were beginning to fail. I will swear that the spirit was willing: but the flesh was beginning to flag. It was nearly forty-five hours since Mansel and I had returned from our reconnaissance, and, though in that time we had each had ten hours’ sleep, the reconnaissance had come at the end of a full day’s toil. We had, therefore, been jaded when we began to spurt: and our spurt was losing its sting, because it did not end.
We were beginning to fail.
I knew that my strength was failing, and tried to conceal the fact. I fancy the others did the same, for the collapse of one must mean the end of our effort. The camel’s back would have broken: not even Mansel could have carried another straw.
When I roused him at half past seven, he held up two canvas kit-bags for me to see.
“The Burglar’s Delight,” said he, with half a laugh.
I tried to laugh back, and lay down—but not to sleep. And there was the surest sign that the end was at hand, for it showed that the flesh was rebelling against its chastisement.
When Mansel returned from the gallery, he stopped to peer at me. I pretended slumber: but his action showed
