There was a refinement in the man's accent, a readiness of speech, an independence of tone, not at all in keeping with what might be expected from one of a gang of miners. The fact was, Josiah Bell had originally held a far better position in life. He had begun that life as a clerk in the office of some large colliery works in Staffordshire; but, partly owing to unsteady habits, partly to an accident which had for many months laid him low and lamed him for life, he had sunk down in the world to what he now was--a workman in a Cornish mine. "Won't the burn heal?" observed Dr. Raynor. "Let me see it, Float." "If you'd please to be so kind, sir," replied the big man, with deprecation, as he took off his coat and prepared to display his arm. It had been badly burned some time ago; and it seemed to get worse instead of better, in spite of the doctoring of his brother the chemist, and of Mr. Blase Pellet. "I have asked you more than once to let me look to your arm, you know, Float," remarked Mr. Frank Raynor. "But I didn't like to trouble you, Master Raynor. I thought Ned and his salves could do for it, sir." "And so you men are not at work to-day, Bell!" began the doctor, as he examined the arm. "What's this absurd story I hear about the Seven Whistlers?" Bell's aspect changed at the question. The pallor on his face seemed to become greyer. It was a greyness that attracted Dr. Raynor's attention: he had never seen it in the man's face before. "They passed over Trennach at midnight," said Bell, in low tones, from which all independence had gone out. "I heard them myself." "And who else heard them?" "I don't know. Nobody--that I can as yet find out. The men were all indoors, they say, long before midnight. The Golden Shaft shuts at ten on a Sunday night." "You stayed out later?" "I came on to Float the druggist's when the public-house closed, and smoked a pipe with him and Pellet, and sat there, talking. It was in going home that I heard the Whistlers." "You may have been mistaken, in thinking you heard them." "No," dissented Bell. "It was in the middle of the Bare Plain. I was stepping along quietly----" "And soberly?" interposed Frank, with a twinkling eye, and a tone that might be taken either for jest or earnest. "And soberly," asserted Bell, resentfully. "As sober as you are now, Mr. Frank Raynor. I was stepping along quietly, I say, when the church clock began to strike. I stood to count it, not believing it could be twelve--not thinking I had stayed all that time at the druggist's. It was twelve, however, and I was still standing after the last stroke had died away, wondering how the time could have passed, when those other sounds broke out high in the air above me. Seven of them: I counted them as I had counted the clock. The saddest sound of a wail I've ever heard--save once before. It seemed to freeze me up." "Did you hear more?" asked Dr. Raynor.