While Derrick is explaining to the mine boss why he is not abed and asleep, and giving his reasons for disturbing him at that late hour, we will return to the mine, and see for ourselves what befell him there, after the events narrated in the last chapter. The Young Sleepers had left him blindfolded, alone, and in total darkness, lying on the floor of an unfamiliar gangway. The boy's first impulse, when he realized that his persecutors had departed and left him alone, was to tear the bandage from his eyes and fling it far from him. Of course this did not enable him to see anything, but he felt more free now that the cloth was removed, and was thankful they had not bound his wrists so that he could not have reached it. His next impulse was to shout for help, but an instant's reflection decided him not to do so. It was not at all probable that anybody except his tormentors would hear him, and they would only rejoice at this evidence of his distress. He knew that all his shoutings would not bring them to him until they were ready to come, and he felt that he had too little strength left to waste it thus uselessly. He could not bear to remain where he was without at least making an attempt to help himself; so he rose to his feet, and feeling his way very cautiously, began to walk along the gangway. Although he did not know it, he involuntarily turned in the opposite direction from the place where Bill Tooley and his companions were waiting and listening to hear from him. For some time Derrick expected to reach a door, behind which he should find a boy, or to meet a train of mule-cars, or a miner who would lead him to the foot of the slope. At length, however, when he had walked a long distance, and yet found none of these, his courage began to leave him and a wild terror to take its place. Suddenly, like a flash, it occurred to him that he had not struck any rails in walking, nor felt any indications of a car-track. Filled with a new dread, he stooped down, and with trembling hands felt every inch of the wet floor from one side of the gangway to the other. There was no sign of a track, and he knew, what he had already suspected, that it had been torn up, and that he was in an abandoned gangway, which another human being might not enter for years. This revelation of the full horror of his situation was too much for the overstrained nerves of the poor lad. He uttered a loud cry, which was echoed and re-echoed with startling distinctness through the silent, rock-walled gallery, flung himself on the wet floor, and burst into bitter sobbings.