it in time, and broke through the farther wall with unusual difficulty,
and went on.

The men generally worked in pairs, but old Tom would have no one with
him. He did all the work, picking and hauling the refuse single-handed.
The work should be his alone, his alone the glory of the great and
ultimate discovery.

The rocks above him sweated and dripped at times, but that was only to
be expected and gave him no anxiety. Alone with his eager hopes he
chipped and picked, and felt no loneliness because of the flame of hope
that burned within him. Above him he could hear the long roll and growl
of the wave-tormented boulders--now a dull, heavy fall like the blow of
a gigantic mallet, and again a long-drawn crash like shingle grinding
down a hillside. But these things he had heard before and had grown
accustomed to.

And so it was fated that, one day, after patiently picking round a great
piece of rock till it was loosened from its ages-old bed, he felt it
tremble under his hand, and leaning his weight against it, it
disappeared into space beyond.

That had happened before when he struck one of the chambers, and he felt
no uneasiness. If there had been water beyond, it would have given him
notice by oozing round the rock as he loosened it. The brief rush of
foul gas, which always followed the opening of one of these hollows, he
avoided by lying flat on the ground until he felt the air about him
sweeter again.

Then, enlarging the aperture with his pick, he scrambled through into