Robinson gave him a significant look. "Both!" he answered. Revis drew him aside; the others, watching them, heard the two men talking technicalities; Jeckie caught chance terms and expressions here and there--"water-laden bed"; "dangerous feeder"; "water-logged trias"; "drainage tunnel"; "Poetsch's method"; "Gebhardt and Koenig's method"; "Kind-Chaudron system"; "winding and pumping"--she understood little or nothing of it, and at that moment did not care to inquire; all that she realised was that the work into which she had put so much energy, and whereon she had laid out all her beloved money, was in danger of utter ruin. She let Albert grumble and growl to the men, and Lucilla weep fretfully; she herself stood silent and motionless, watching Revis and the manager. Revis came to her at last, motioning Albert and Lucilla to join them. He looked graver than before. "This is a very bad job!" he said in a low voice. "There seems to be no doubt that this explosive, whatever it was--and it must have been of extraordinary force--has tapped an exceptionally heavy lot of water. The mine'll be flooded--that is, these two shafts will. It's a good job you hadn't got the whole thing finished and opened out, for in that case, if this explosion had happened, you'd have had all the workings flooded, and there'd probably have been serious loss of life. As it is----" Jeckie interrupted him--the question of what might have been had no interest for her. "Can't the water be pumped out?" she asked. "You had trouble yourself that way?" "Aye, you can pump!" agreed Revis. "But--you don't know what amount of water there is yet. It looks to me, from what Robinson says, as if there was a sort of subterranean lake down there. Pump, aye!--but ... a long and terrible job. And--now don't be frightened!--the thing is--will it be worth it?" "The coal's there!" exclaimed Jeckie, dogged and determined. Revis looked from her to the Grices. Lucilla was grasping a tear-soaked handkerchief and gazing at him in the last throes of despairing anxiety; Albert stood with his lips a little open, expectant of wisdom from the man of experience. "Yes," said Revis, at last. "But--it's no use shirking difficulties--this may be a quicksand that forms a thick cover all over the measures of whatever extent they may be. The fact is--you don't know what's happened down there, nor where you are." "The coal's there!" repeated Jeckie. "It's there, I say! We've got to get it." CHAPTER XI _The Sentence_