Flashley now felt a wavering motion in his descent, while an increasing current of air rose to meet him; and almost immediately after, he heard strange and confused sounds beneath. Looking down into the darkness, he not only saw a reddening light, but, as he stared down, it became brighter, until he saw the gleam of flames issuing from one side of the shaft. He fully expected to descend into the midst, and ‘there an end;’ but he speedily found he was reserved for some other fate. The fire was placed in a large chasm, and appeared to have a steep red pathway sloping away behind it. He passed it safely. From this moment he felt no current of air, but his ears were assailed with a variety of noises, in which he could distinguish the gush of waters, the lumbering of wood, the clank and jar of chains, and the voices of men—or something worse. Three black figures were distinctly visible. In a few seconds more, his feet touched earth—which seemed to give a heave, in answer. His descent from the upper surface had not occupied longer time than has been necessary to describe it, but this was greatly magnified to his imagination by the number, novelty, and force of the emotions and thoughts that had attended it. He was now at the bottom of the William Pitt Coal Mine, nine hundred and thirty feet below the surface of the earth. A man all black with coal-dust, and naked from the waist upwards, took hold of Flashley, and extricating him from the chain girdle and iron umbrella, led him away into the darkness, lighted only by a candle stuck in a lump of clay which his conductor held in the other hand. Over all the various sounds, that of rushing waters predominated at this spot; and very soon they turned an angle which enabled Flashley to descry a black torrent spouting from a narrow chasm, and rushing down a precipitous gully on one side of them to seek some still lower abyss. Another angle was turned; the torrent was no longer seen and its noise grew fainter almost at every step.