went home empty-handed.




CHAPTER IX

HOW OLD TOM FOUND THE SILVER HEART


One of the first things Stephen Gard had seen to, when he got matters
into his own hands, was the safeguarding of the mines from ever-possible
irruption of the sea. The great steam pumps kept the workings reasonably
clear of drainage water, but no earthly power could drain the sea if it
once got in.

The central shafts had sunk far below sea-level. The lateral galleries
had, in some cases, run out seawards and were now extending far under
the sea itself.

From the whirling coils of the tides and races round the coast, he
judged that the sea-bed was as seamed and broken and full of faults as
the visible cliffs ashore.

In bad weather, the men in those submarine galleries and the
outbranching tunnels could hear the crash of the waves above their
heads, and the rolling and grinding of the mighty boulders with which
they disported.

If, by chance, the sea should break through, the peril to life and