Charge! Part 25

"Oh, there's not a bit of doubt about it," cried Denham. "What do you say, Sergeant?"

"Not a bit o' doubt about it, sir. I've seen smelting-furnaces enough our way for copper and tin, and this might have been one of such places, made by old-fas.h.i.+oned folks who didn't know so much as we know now. It's an old smelting-shop for certain; but I don't see as we've anything to shout about."

"What!" cried Denham; "when we've made a discovery like this? Are you mad?"

"Not as I knows on, sir. It's only like coming to a corner of the beach at home and finding a heap of oyster-sh.e.l.ls."

"What do you mean?" said Denham angrily.

"Why, sir, it only shows as there was oysters there once, and that somebody came and dredged them, opened 'em, and ate 'em, and left the sh.e.l.ls behind. Here's the sh.e.l.l, plain enough; but the old Tyre and Sidems, as you call 'em, took away all the gold, sure enough. Trust 'em!"

"What!" cried Denham, laughing. "Is it likely? Here's a gold-mine, sure enough; but if there's one here, don't you think there must be plenty more places in this country where people could dig down and get gold?"

"May be, sir," said Briggs, scratching his ear.

"Is there only one tin-mine in Cornwall, Sergeant?" I said.

"Only one tin-mine in Cornwall!" cried Briggs in disgust. "Whatcher talking about? Why, the country's full of 'em. You find tin wherever you like to cut down to one kind o' rock as is what they call quartz, and where there's tin in it there's a lot o' red powder as well; and when you break a bit there's the tin, all in pretty little black s.h.i.+ny grains. Oh, there's plenty o' tin in Cornwall, only it costs a lot to dig and blast it out o' the mine."

"So you may depend upon it there's plenty of gold here, sergeant," said Denham, taking the piece of stone I had picked up and holding it out to the sergeant. "There's a specimen of the ore, and I'll be bound to say there's tons of it to be found."

"Humph!" said the Sergeant, examining the piece of stone; "p'r'aps them bits o' threads and them sc.r.a.ppy bits may be gold; but if you broke that up and melted it, the gold you'd get would be such a tiny bead that it wouldn't be worth taking away."

"Perhaps not," said Denham, giving me a look; "but there'd be a good-sized bead out of a ton. The ancient miners didn't work for nothing, I'll be bound. But come along; we've found what we were looking for, and-"

He stopped short, for just then a shot was fired, which made us start on our return along the narrow pa.s.sage.

"Mind the hole," I shouted to Denham, who was first.

"Jingo!" he cried, "I'd forgotten it;" and he made a bound which took him clear, proving that I had spoken just in time.

Before we were out into the wider pa.s.sage open to the sky, three or four more shots rang out, followed by a volley, and then there was a cheer.

"Ahoy, there!" cried Denham, hailing the men on the top of the outer wall. "What is it-enemy come on?"

"Eh? Oh, it's you, sir," cried one of our troopers, looking down. "Yes, and no. Enemy, but not the Boers."

"What do you mean?" cried Denham sharply.

"Troop of those baboons got together and making a rush, barking like a pack of dogs, at our fellows out yonder among the rocks. They had to give 'em a few pills to scatter 'em. The savage little beasts have gone off now."

"I thought we were going to be out of a fight," said Denham to me as we quickly retraced our steps, to make our way to the Colonel, whom we found at last in the court amongst the horses, talking anxiously to a knot of officers.

"Oh, there you are, Mr Denham," said the Colonel as we went up. "I was beginning to think you'd come to grief. I could have searched the place half-a-dozen times over by now. You've come to say there's no water, of course?"

"No, sir; I've found plenty."

"What!" cried the Colonel, whose whole manner changed in an instant. "You've found plenty?"

"Yes, sir."

"Splendid news, my dear boy. There, I forgive you for being long," he added good-humouredly. "The horses want a drink badly. Show the men where to lead them at once."

"My news is not so good as that, sir. It's hard to get."

"What! At the bottom of a well?"

"Of a well-like place; and I think there's an ample supply."

"See to getting ropes, Sergeant," said the Colonel, "and-we have no buckets with us?"

"No, sir; but there's a couple of those zinc-lined nose-bags in the troop."

"Capital. They'll do. Take what men you want, and set to work drawing water at once. You must try and clear out some hollow among the stones near the mouth of the well, so that the horses can be led to drink as fast as the men can haul the water up."

I was in the party told off to help; and the first thing to be done was to find the nearest part of the court to the interior building where the mine-shaft was. It proved to be an easier task than we antic.i.p.ated. What was better, we came upon a pile of stones in one corner, close up to the wall, which looked as if they had been heaped up there by hand for some reason or another; and they attracted me so that I drew Denham's attention to them, and told him what I thought.

"You're right," he said. "Here, half-a-dozen of you, come and help."

He was about to set the men to work to drag the stones away; but I proposed that the tethering raw-hide ropes of two of the horses should be attached to their saddles and the ends made fast to the great rough slabs of stone. This was done, and the horses set to draw, when one by one a dozen ma.s.sive pieces were drawn aside, leaving a little opening, through which I dropped a stone, with the result that those who listened heard a deep-sounding plos.h.!.+ and set up a cheer. Then other two slabs were dragged away, to lay bare a roughly squared hole six feet across, from which the water could be easily drawn up.

"That communicates with our shaft, then?" said Denham to me in a questioning tone.

"No doubt," I said. "I dare say there are tunnels running in several directions. Did you tell the Colonel about the gold?"

"Not yet," he replied. "He thinks a good deal more about the water now than he would do about gold. But, I say, do you think it will be good drinking-water?"

"Certainly," I said. "Gold isn't copper."

"Thank you," he said sarcastically. "I found that out a long time ago. I never could do anything like so much with a penny as I could with a sov.-Here, Sergeant," he cried as the first water-bag was pulled up, dripping, and with the sound of the water that fell back echoing musically with many repet.i.tions underground, in what seemed to be a vast place. "Water good?"

"Beautiful, sir. Clear as crystal and cold as ice."

"Then I'll have a taste," said the Colonel, coming up. "Excellent!" he continued, after taking a deep draught from the portable cup he took from his pocket. "Now, what are you going to do?"

"Keep on pouring it into that hollow among the stones, sir," said Denham, pointing to a little depression. Into this one of our makes.h.i.+ft bags was emptied, and the impromptu trough proved quite suitable.

Then the men worked away at lowering and raising the nose-bag buckets, drawing up sufficient in a few minutes for watering half-a-dozen horses at a time.

While this was progressing the Colonel returned from where he had been inspecting the top of the wall, and rearranging the men so as to take the greatest advantage of our position, to make sure the Boers could not break in through the weakest spot-the opening where the wall had fallen.

"Ha!" he said to Denham and me, "you two deserve great credit for hunting out the old underground tank of this ancient fortress. Now, with plenty of provisions and fodder for the horses, we might hold this place for any length of time. I think the General ought to know of it, and place two or three companies of foot here. I see that good shelter might be contrived by drawing some wagon-sheets across the top of these double walls."

"Yes, sir-easily," said Denham. "As you say, there would be no horses to keep if the place were held by foot."

"Exactly," said the Colonel, who seemed much interested in the drawing of the water, and listened intently to the echoes of the splas.h.i.+ng from the impromptu buckets. "Why, Denham, that tank seems to be of great size; quite a reservoir, and tremendously deep."

"It is, sir," said Denham dryly; "only it isn't a tank."