Briggs went back and fetched another block. "This here's the same, sir," he said, "and cut out deeper, as if to fit on something." "Yes, that's more perfect," I said. "Throw the first one down." "Seems a pity," said Denham, looking first at one block and then the other. "They are curious; why, they look as if some one had tried to chisel out a hand-barrow on a flat piece of stone." "Yes, sir," said Briggs gruffly, "or one o' them skates' eggs we used to find on the seashore at home in Mount's Bay." "Look here," I said, kicking at the flooring and loosening a shaley piece of stone about as big as my hand; "I'll throw this down." I pitched the piece into the darkness below, and we listened for it to strike, but listened in vain for a few seconds, and then: _Plosh_! "Water!" I cried. "Why, we've found the well." "Hurrah!" cried Denham; "well done us!" and he stepped back to where I had kicked out the piece of broken stone, and was about to throw another piece down, when, as the light from above fell upon it, I snatched it from his hand. "Don't do that," he cried angrily. "I want to judge how deep the place is." "Don't throw that," I said huskily. "Why not?" "It isn't a well." "What is it, then?" "Look at this piece of stone," I said, and I held the under part upward so that the light fell upon two or three scale-like grains and a few fine yellowish-green threads which ran through it. "It's an ancient mine, and this is gold." "Right!" cried Denham excitedly. "Then that old place back there with the chimney is the old smelting-furnace." "Right you are, gentlemen," cried Briggs, slapping his thigh; "and I know what those two hand-barrow stones are. I've seen one like 'em before." "What?" I said eagerly. "Moulds, sir, as the old people used to pour the melted stuff in. They used to do it near my old home in Cornwall, only the metal there was tin." CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. THE OLD FOLKS WORK. "Then this isn't a well, after all," said Denham, who seemed struck with wonderment. "No," I said excitedly, as all kinds of Aladdin-like ideas connected with wealth began to run through my mind; "but there's water in it, and it will serve us as a well." "Yes, of course," cried Denham. "I say, you two have made a discovery." Then he lit a match, got it well in a blaze, and let it drop down the square shaft, when it kept burning till, at about a hundred feet below us, it went out with a faint hiss, which told that it had reached the water. "It'll do for a well, sir," said Briggs; "and I wouldn't mind getting down it at the end of a rope. I've done it before now, when a well's been rather doubtful, and we've had to burn flares down it to start the foul air. That hole's as clear as can be." "How do you know?" said Denham. "By the way that match burned till it reached the water, sir. If the air down there had been foul it would have been put out before it reached the surface."