Ho, monk!’
Someone had been watching me! Yet. I could not see who, for the darkness had re- turned, and the stranger made no offer of a name. There was only a following silence, and then Flynn’s startled barking clattered around the cavern, and fell away in echoes down the abyss like a harsh and distant carillon, before the voice spoke again.
Down the face of the precipice they clambered, to hitch the rope upon crag’s and lower the machine, and upon ledges they paused only for breath then lowered away again, until the crack narrowed and they began to tunnel.
And how they tunnelled!
The machine bucked and recoiled, but was braced by the miners with shoulders to the helm, and strong arms to the handles and eager hands upon the windlass, and fists to knock away the ratchet release so the long shaft ever leapt forward, and the tip of iron clove the rock, and they battered their way forward amidst dust and sweat and shouts.
With such ferocious speed, four times the length of their rope they tunnelled, nay, perhaps five times, before they struck the last hard rock between them — and the far side of the earth. And the tip of iron broke open a hole, but upon a place so dank and stinking that it made their noses twitch.
y the light of lamps they peered out on such a stream of makewater, and vegetable peelings, and ordure bobbing, that they guessed Griffin’s city
must indeed lie beyond it, and by the foul density of slops that passed by, that it must indeed be huge.
And the boy Griffin was roped, and moved into this tunnel un- til he found a ladder and pushed up a heavy lid of metal.