"Yes, ’tis strange they did not dig them out, but the emptiness is easy to understand. The spirit has run away." "Run away! How could it with the tub sound, not a hole in it? Besides, there bean’t no smell, and I don’t care who the man is, but if sperits run out, you can smell ’em anywhere." "I suppose——" began Dick, but his answer was suddenly cut short. From the direction of the passage through which they had come there fell upon their ears a dull rumbling sound, which reverberated for a few seconds, then died away into silence. The boys stood for a moment in silent bewilderment; then, with a foreboding of evil, Dick hastened back from the cavern along the gallery. In a minute the astounding cause of the noise was explained. The bridge by which they had crossed the shaft was gone. Only the jagged end of it jutted out from the further brink of the chasm. By the flickering light of the candle Dick thought he saw a figure moving backwards through the gallery on the opposite side. He shouted, his voice coming back to him in a hundred echoes. The figure disappeared, if indeed it were not an hallucination: Dick’s state of horrified amazement might well predispose him to see visions. He stood on the brink, bathed in chill and clammy perspiration. He realised to the full the situation of himself and his companion. They were trapped in the gallery. Before them was a shaft perhaps hundreds of feet deep; behind, an impenetrable wall. "I said I’d never do it again, and I never will," sobbed Sam. "Hoy! hoy!" shouted Dick. "Yo-hoy, hoy!" Sam repeated in his rougher tones. But there was no reply; only the mocking, receding echoes.