Christian reflected that the police, when he heard their footsteps, had been running to Lockjaw Creek. It would take them five minutes to reach it. When they got there and saw the boats on the shingle they would know that their men had escaped them. Then they would hasten back. In ten minutes they would pass the mouth of the shaft again. Five of these ten minutes must have gone already. If he were to be rescued he must know nearabouts when they ought to return, so that he might shout when they were within hail. He remembered that their footsteps had gone from him like the wind. The long shaft and sixty feet of dull dead rock and earth had carried them off in an instant. Christian began to reckon the moments. His thoughts came too fast. He knew they must deceive him as to time. Minutes in this perilous position might count with him for hours. He took out his watch, meaning to listen for the beat of its seconds. The watch had stopped. No doubt it was full of water. Christian's heart beat loud enough. Then he began to count--one, two, three. But his mind was in a whirl. He lost his reckoning. He found that he had stopped counting and forgotten the number. Whether five minutes or fifty had passed he could not be sure. Hark! He heard something overhead. Were they footsteps, those thuds that fell on the ear like the first rumble of a distant thunder-cloud? Yes, some one was near him. Now was his time to call, but his tongue was cleaving to his mouth. Then he heard words spoken at the mouth of the shaft. They rumbled down to him like words shouted through a hollow black pillar. "Here, men," said one, "let's tumble him into the lead mine. No harm will it do him now, poor craythur." But another voice, laden with the note of fearful agony, cried, "No, no, no!" "We must do something. No time to lose now. The fac's is agen us. Let's make a slant for it, anyway. Lift again--up!" Christian shuddered at the sound of human voices. Buried, as he was, sixty feet beneath the earth, they came to him like the voice that the wind might make on a tempestuous night if, as it reached your ear, it whispered words and fled away. The men were gone. Christian's blood was chilled. What had happened? Was some one dead? Who was it? Christian shuddered at the thought of what might have occurred if the dead body had been tossed over him into the pit. Had the police overstepped their duty? _Were_ they the police? Did he not remember one of the voices--or both? Christian's entempest soul was overwhelmed with agony. He could not be sure that in very truth he was conscious of anything that occurred. Time passed--he knew not how long or short--and again he heard voices overhead. They were not the voices that he had heard before. "They have escaped us," said one. "Their boats are gone from the creek now."