“Would not mind breaking my neck!” Gregg retorted with decision. “No, thank you, not for me I hope to have a wife and children some day, and I will keep my neck for them. Go down!” he repeated, looking round with extreme scorn. “Pooh! No one can expect us to do it! It is these people’s business, and they are used to it; but there is not a sane man in the kingdom, besides, would go down that place after what has just happened. It is a quarter of a mile as a stone falls, if it is an inch!” “It is all that,” assented the other, much relieved. “And a height makes me giddy,” Dr. Gregg added. “I feel the same now,” said his elder. “No; every man to his trade,” Gregg concluded, settling the matter to his satisfaction. “Let them bring them up, and we will doctor them. But while they are below ground—— Hallo!” His last word was an oath of surprise and anger. Happening to glance round, the doctor saw Lindo coming forward to the shaft, and recognized him in spite of his disguise. One look, and Gregg would cheerfully have given ten pounds either to have had the rector away, or to have arrived a little later himself. He had reckoned already in his own mind that, if no outsider went down, he could scarcely be blamed for taking care of himself. But, if the rector went down, the matter would wear a different aspect. And Dr. Gregg saw this so clearly that he turned pale with rage and chagrin, and swore more loudly than before. CHAPTER XXI. IN PROFUNDIS. The young clergyman’s face, as he walked forward to the shaft, formed no index to his mind, for while it remained calm and even wore a faint smile, he was inwardly conscious of a strong desire to take hold of anything which presented itself, even a straw. He stepped gravely into the tub amid a low murmur, and, clutching the iron bar above it, felt himself at a word of command lifted gently into the air, and swung over the shaft. For an uncomfortable five seconds or so he remained stationary; then there was a jerk—another—and the dark figures, the lines of faces, and the glare of the fires leapt suddenly above his head. He found himself dropping through space with a swift, sickening motion, as of one falling away from himself. His heart rose into his throat. There was a loud buzzing in his ears, and yet above this he heard the dull rattling sound of the rope being paid out. Every other sense was spent in the stern clutch of his hands on the bar above his head.