We can get candles at the bottom." If I had had any ideas of a silver mine being a cavern full of beautiful sights, I was very soon deceived, for as I stood there at the top, I saw my father step on to the top rounds of a rough-looking ladder, and begin to descend slowly till he reached a platform, when he called to me to follow.
"Hold tight," he said.

"But there, I needn't tell you after your cliff climbing." I was just about to descend when a voice behind me made me turn.
"Going down, Sep ?" I turned to confront Bigley Uggleston, who looked at me imploringly.
"Ask him if I may come down too ?" "Who's that ?" said my father sharply.

"Oh, I see.

Yes, he can come." Bigley flushed up with pleasure, and I let him go down next, and then followed, to find that a gallery went off on a level with the platform; but my father had already descended to the next platform below, and when we followed him there, it was to find he had reached another.
To get to this we passed another gallery, and then stood by where my father was lighting a couple of candles, as he rested upon some wood-work, beneath which we could hear the trickle and splash of falling water, while away from our right, down a long passage propped here and there with pieces of timber, came the dull echoing sound of blows.
"Well, my lads, what do you think of the enchanted cave ?" I looked about me by the light of the dim candles and saw that the shaft was divided by a wood partition, one side being reserved for the ladders, the other for the pump to work and the stout rope to go up and down and draw the buckets, there being openings in the wood-work opposite each of the galleries.
"Well, you don't say anything," said my father.
"It's very dark, sir," replied Bigley.
"Yes," said my father; "and it's darker still farther in.

What do you say, will you go on ?" "If Sep does." "Oh, yes," I said, "I shall go;" not that I wanted to go any farther, but I felt that I could not draw back; though I would very gladly have been up in the bright sunshine instead of in the damp gloomy hole, shut in by ladders and wood-work, and with, the falling water seeming as if it was gathering force, and ready to rise as it does in a well.
But there was no time for thinking.