First of all, they arrayed themselves in underground garments--not
grave clothes, though the name is certainly suggestive of the
cemetery--which consisted of canvas trousers, heavy boots, blue
blouses of a rough woollen material, and a sou'wester each. Thus
accoutred, they went along to the foot of the poppet heads, and
Archie having opened a door therein, Vandeloup saw the mouth of the
shaft yawning dark and gloomy at his feet. As he stood there, gazing
at the black hole which seemed to pierce down into the entrails of
the earth, he turned round to take one last look at the sun before
descending to the nether world.

This is quite a new experience to me,' he said, as they stepped into
the wet iron cage, which had ascended to receive them in answer to
Archie's signal, and now commenced to drop down silently and swiftly
into the pitchy darkness. 'It puts me in mind of Jules Verne's
romances.'

Archie did not reply, for he was too much occupied in lighting his
candle to answer, and, moreover, knew nothing about romances, and
cared still less. So they went on sliding down noiselessly into the
gloom, while the water, falling from all parts of the shaft, kept
splashing constantly on the top of the cage and running in little
streams over their shoulders.

'It's like a nightmare,' thought the Frenchman, with a nervous
shudder, as he saw the wet walls gleaming in the faint light of the
candle. 'Worthy of Dante's "Inferno".'

At last they reached the ground, and found themselves in the main
chamber, from whence the galleries branched off to east and west.