All the same he felt very much startled; for it seemed so unaccountable for anyone to be there. The men would be in the regular seams. There was nothing to bring them here; and as they toiled at piece-work, they would not lift a pick except to hew out coal. No overman would be here without his knowledge; and try how he would to find some reason for the sound, he was still at fault. The only possibility was that, in some peculiar way the echo of a hewer's pick ran along the silent galleries, to be reverberated from this distant wall. "Impossible!" he said, doubling up his map and replacing it in his breast, as he rose and took up his lamp. "It is impossible!" he said again, as _tap_, _tap_, _tap_, the regular stroke as of a pick was heard, and with no small feeling of trepidation he went to search out the cause of the unusual sound. CHAPTER EIGHT. PARKS'S MARK. Before he had gone far he became aware that the noise came from the old gallery that he had marked down as being the most likely to lead nearest to the workings of the ancient pit, and, after carefully peering down it, he held his lamp above his head to gaze in farther. But he could see nothing; and suddenly the noise ceased. With a quick motion Philip thrust the tall, thin lamp inside his flannel mine-coat and buttoned it up, for the thought suddenly struck him that if anyone was at work there he would be sure to have a light. It turned out as he expected, for there, upon a ledge of rock about fifty yards ahead, stood a Davy-lamp, shedding its soft dull rays around, so that some fell upon a wall of coal, which glistened in the light as if it had been newly cut. "It is very strange," thought Philip. "Why should anyone be at work here? It is dangerous, too. The old mine full of water must be close behind." "Well," he said, "Davy-lamps are not at all ghost-like things, so let us see what it all means;" and going cautiously forward, with his own lamp hidden, he crept near enough to see that there was a heavy iron bar lying upon the flooring of the wide chamber, for the gallery had been opened out here, and beside it a heap of newly-chipped coal, the result of an effort evidently being made to bore through into the ancient pit. "Why, it is treachery!" exclaimed Philip mentally. "Someone is trying to flood--Ah!" A tremendous blow fell upon his head, and he dropped to the ground, motionless, stunned as it were in body; but with every faculty of his mind quickened, and, with his eyes half-closed, he saw a dark figure stride across him, a short iron bar in his hand, pick up the lamp and hold it down. "Yes, I ar'n't made no mistake, Muster Hex'on. I said I'd mak' my mark on yo, and yo've got it this time. How came he here?" The man stood in a listening attitude for a few moments, and then, apparently satisfied, raised his bar to strike again.