The swift plunge into the mine speeded. She deliberately worked herself up to silent panic, giving the gods a spoor to chase. Now they were traveling on the level, and from the reflection of yellow, the brisk jerk of his arm, and the pulpy squish, she knew he had met and slain another globe. Was he inhuman, a visitor from beyond the world, such as were told of in the ancient ballads? Certainly no man was ever this bold! "Here's the end," said Jerran. "Set the wench down, she can't get away. Hurry!" She was rudely plumped onto a pile of coal. She looked at her silver gown and shuddered. Her flailing legs had ripped it from hem to midthigh; the coal was staining it irrevocably. "When I catch that horse," she thought, half aloud, "I'll beat him. Tossing me into all this!" * * * * * They were pulling down rocks from the wall; now a black hole appeared. The small man jumped up to a boulder and snatched down a blue mine lantern. "Take this, Revel." That was it, Revel. An odd name, a rather nice one. The ruck ordinarily had such awful names, Jark and Dack and Orp. Revel. Not bad. It fitted the big lusty-looking brute. He came over. "Never mind picking me up," she said icily. "I can walk." She peered into the hole, winced, and clambering over the rocks, losing a heel from one of her slippers, she entered their secret cavern. Revel climbed in after her. Jerran was already piling rocks back into the breach. The lantern looked faint and incapable of lighting a chimney corner, but its blue radiance was deceptive, for the farthest reaches of the place were cast into a moonlight sort of glow. She gazed around, unable to take it in, seeing nothing at first but giant shapes of mystery, unknown things in stacks and in tumbled heaps, figures like grotesque statues, all lined in rows the length and breadth of the giant cavern. The cave itself was square, perhaps a hundred feet to a side. It must have taken scores of miners months of work to hew it out of the rock. Unwilling to show interest, she still had to ask, "When did you make this?" "We didn't make it, Lady. We found it. No man alive made this place." "How do you know?" "The miners would know it. We broke through the wall only yesterday." "What are these things?" "You know as much as I do." He was looking at her in the way her father sometimes looked at rucker serving women, as though she had no clothes on at all. She had little modesty, society was lax when it came to such things as clothing, and frequently she had ridden the streets of Dolfya Town in a suit of transparent silk that made the ruck gape and blush; but this very personal scrutiny made her shield her breasts with one arm as she stared back at him. "I've changed my mind about you," she said pleasantly. "Yes?" Did the swine look eager?