Rudolph scrambled after, now urged by an ecstasy of apprehension, now clogged as by the weight of all the hill above them.

If it should fall now, he thought, or now; and thus measuring as he crawled, found the tunnel endless.
When at last, however, they gained the bottom of the shaft, and were hoisted out among their coolies on the shelving mound, the evening stillness lay above and about them, undisturbed.

The fuse could never have lasted all these minutes.

Their whole enterprise was but labor lost.

They listened, breathing short.