In a few seconds the horrible sensation of falling passed away. He was no longer in space with nothing stable about him, but in a small tub at the end of a tough rope. Except for a slight swaying motion, he hardly knew that he was still descending; and presently a faint light, more diffused than his own lamp, grew visible. Then he came gently to a standstill, and some one held up a lantern to his face. With difficulty he made out two huge figures standing beside him, who laid hold of his tub and pulled it toward them until it rested on something solid. “You are welcome,” growled one, as, aided by a hand of each, Lindo stepped out. “You will be the doctor, I suppose, master? Well, this way. Catch hold of my jacket.” Lindo obeyed, being only too glad of the help thus given him; for though the men seemed to move about with ease and certainty, he could make out nothing but shapeless gloom. “Now you sit right down there,” continued the collier, when they had moved a few yards, “and you will get the sight of your eyes in a bit.” He did as he was bid, and one by one the objects about him became visible. His first feeling was one of astonishment. He had put a quarter of a mile of solid earth between himself and the sunlight, and yet, for all he could see, he might be merely in a cellar under a street. He found himself seated on a rough bench, in a low-roofed, windowless, wooden cabin, strangely resembling a very dirty London office in a fog. True, everything was black—very black. On another bench, opposite him, sat the two colliers who had received him, their lamps between their knees. His first impulse was to tell them hurriedly that he was not the doctor. “I am afraid you must be disappointed,” he added, “but I hope one will follow me down. I am a clergyman, and I want to do something for those poor fellows, if you will take me to them.” The two men betrayed no surprise, but he who had spoken before quietly poked up the wick of his lamp and held the lantern up so as to get a good view of his face. “Ay, ay,” he said, nodding, as he lowered it again. “I thought you weren’t unbeknown to me. You are the parson we fetched to poor Lucas a while ago. Well, Jim will have a rare cageful of his friends with him to-night.” The rector shuddered. Such apathy, such matter-of-factness was new to him. But though his heart sank as the collier rose and, swinging his lamp in his hand, passed through the doorway, he made haste to follow him; and the man’s next words, “You had best look to your steps, master, for there is a deal of rubbish come down”—pointing as they did to a material danger—brought him, in the diversion of his thoughts, something like relief.