CHAPTER XV.

THE SEARCH.

"He's a braave booy, sartainly!" said old Michael Treherne, admiringly, in his queer Cornish accent, "it is like him and like his family--the Trevelyans of Rhoscadzhel.

By Tre, Pol and Pen, We know the Cornish men.

He'd face Tregeagle himself--lower away gently, lads. His ancestors existed hundreds of years ago; and for the matter o' that, I spose so did mine; we be all old Cornish _keth_."*

* People.

Audley Trevelyan would freely have risked his life to save anyone--of course a woman more than all; but how glorious was this! The peril he risked--for no ordinary amount of nerve was requisite for him who swung thus over the profundity of the ancient mine--was for his lovely little friend of the sketch-book; the Naiad of the moorland tarn--she who seemed not indisposed to love him, and whose heart he might yet make his own.

"But Heaven!" thought he; "that impulsive little heart may be--alas--still enough by this time!"

And even as this disastrous fear occurred to him, the roar of the falling water was heard on the lower level of the empty mine, more than a thousand feet below him, while the lantern he carried cast strange gleams on the damp, slimy, and discoloured masonry of the shaft, after he left behind, or rather above him, the fringe of weeds and gorse, that grew about the mouth; yet in less than a minute he was assured that the water he heard falling, proceeded, not from the flow of the tide, as he and his companions foreboded, but from some subterranean spring falling into the shaft, far below the upper entrance of the Pixies' Hole; and anything more weird, dreary, and ghastly than that cavernous fissure which now opened off it on one side, and which he was preparing cautiously to explore, it would be difficult to conceive.

From its rocky and ragged mouth, which was covered with white and pendant stalactites and hideous fungi, on which the light of his lantern fell with fitful rays, its interior receded away into dark and gloomy blackness and uncertainty.

"Good Heaven!" muttered Audley, "the poor girl cannot be here. Should she have fallen down the shaft!"--was his next terrible thought.

"Are ee saafe, sur?" cried Treherne, peering down from above.

"All right, old fellow--stop lowering and make fast the rope; I am just at the place, and a horrid one it is."

Ere he entered it, and cast off the cradle by which he had descended, he could hear in the obscurity beyond the surging or gurgling sound of the tide, at the lower end; and a nervous chill that he might find Sybil drowned, came over his heart.

"Well, by Jove!" he muttered; "of all the places in this world, to search for a young lady, who would think of this--down the shaft of a devilish old copper mine! I have seen some queer things in India, but this out-herods them all!"

Carrying the lantern so that its light should precede and guide his steps, he had barely gone twenty paces, when he discerned something white amid the dense gloom. Within but a few feet of the still encroaching water, a female figure was lying on a shelf of rock, from which she started into a half sitting posture, and gazed upward at him, with a wild and startled expression, in which hope and fear, joy and wonder, were singularly mingled.

She was that Sybil Devereaux of whom he was in search; her dress, a white pique, all soiled, bedrabbled and wet, her fine dark hair dishevelled and sodden, her hat and veil gone, and her whole aspect forlorn and pitiable.

"I am saved!" she exclaimed in a wailing and excited voice; "I thank Heaven--I thank kind God that you are come to me; but how--and who are you that have had the courage----"

"Audley--Audley Trevelyan--don't you know me, Miss Devereaux?" said he, as he placed the lantern on a rock, and raised her tenderly in his arms.

"Oh Audley!" she exclaimed, and her head fell upon his shoulder, for she was weak as a child and past all exertion. She had never called him by his Christian name before, and while he felt his heart swell with a new emotion of pleasure, he ventured tenderly to kiss her cheek, and then he became aware how cold and chill it was. She seemed scarcely conscious of the act, though she said in a broken voice,

"Mamma--my poor mamma shall thank you, sir--I cannot speak my own thoughts--they are too terrible and my gratitude is too deep for words."

"From my soul, I thank Heaven, that I came in time to save you! A little longer here, my dearest girl, and you must have perished of cold!" said he as he perceived with genuine anxiety how pale she was and how the whole of her delicate frame shivered, but his words or manner seemed to recall her energies, for she tried to smile and said,

"I shall have a strange story to write of to Denzil, and tell my papa when he returns."

"Have ee found her zur--is the young lady saafe?" cried a voice there was no mistaking, down the shaft.

"Safe and sound, Treherne," replied Trevelyan, whose voice made strange echoes in the cavernous recesses of the place; "we shall come up together, so take care my friends, for there will be a heavier strain on the rope--a double weight now. Permit me to lead you, Miss Devereaux--or, may I not call you Sybil?" he added, as his voice trembled a little.

"You may call me what you please," replied Sybil with something of her usual frankness, "I owe my life to you," she added feebly, while clinging to his arm.

"To me, after Rajah who guided us here, no doubt on hearing you cry for aid--so with the permission you accord, I shall call you Sybil--yes dearest Sybil, permit me to blindfold you."

"Why?"

"You may become giddy--terrified."

"I submit myself to you," she answered, and he tied his handkerchief over her eyes, and while doing so, to resist touching her lovely little lips with his own, was impossible.

"Pardon me for this, Sybil," said he, as the action brought a little colour to her pale cheek, "but I love you, love you dearly. Elsewhere, we shall talk of this--come, allow me to be your guide."

"Shall we not wait till the tide ebbs, and escape by the sands?" she asked, and shrinking as his arm encircled her.

"Dearest girl, you would die of cold ere that took place."

Thus from terror and despair on Sybil's part, and from a proud and joyous sense of exultation, on that of Trevelyan, there came about abruptly, a _dénouement_ which might have been long of developing itself, even with those who were so young and enthusiastic, a declaration of love upon one hand, and a tacit acceptance of it on the other, for gratitude mastered the regard already formed in the heart of the girl.

Audley was now in that delightful state of the tender passion, when to see even the skirt, to hear the voice or to breathe the same atmosphere, with its object, had a charm; then how much greater was the joy of having her all to himself, and to feel that too probably, she owed her life to him!

"You do not--do not--love--" she faltered and paused.

"Whom?"

"Rose Trecarrel?"

"I love but you, and I bless God for the opportunity given me for testifying that love, by serving and saving you--Sybil--dear Sybil for so let me call you now and for ever."

"What the deuce _are_ you about, Trevelyan? Do you mean to stay down there all night--or is the lady ill? That dreary hole can be neither romantic nor pleasant, I should fancy."

It was the voice of the General hailing him now.

"Here we come, sir," replied Audley, as he fastened the rope cradle securely round his body and courageously took Sybil in his arms. It was no doubt delightful to hold her in an embrace so close, and to feel her clinging to him, but a thrill of intense anxiety passed over all his nerves, and it seemed as if the hair of his head bristled up, when he found himself swinging at the end of a rope over that dreadful abyss, down which the lantern, as it chanced to fall from his hand, vanished as if into the bowels of the earth, for the lower level of that old mine, was far below the sea. As for poor Sybil, she felt only a terror that amounted to a species of torpor--a numbness of all sense.

"Now pull together, my booys!" cried the cheerful voice of Michael Treherne, "one, two--one, two--_ho_ and here they come out of the _knacked bal_!" for so the Cornish miners designate an abandoned mine, as it is among his class, and in the mines, that words of the old language linger.

And in less than a minute, Audley and Sybil were at the surface and in the grasp of strong hands that placed them safely on terra firma, when, overcome by all she had endured, the former immediately fainted.

"The poor child is as wet as a _quilquin_" (a frog), said Treherne with commiseration.

"She requires instant attention," said the General kindly; "let her own servants take her at once to your cottage, Treherne, as it is the nearest place in this stormy night. See to this, Audley, while I hurry down to Porthellick and relieve the anxiety of her mother. Give orders to have the carriage sent there for her. By the way, Audley, is not this the girl that Rose chaffs you about?"

"The same, sir," replied Trevelyan, whose heightened colour was unseen in the dark.

"How strange! Rose is such a quiz, you will never hear the end of this."

"She is the daughter of an officer--a Captain Devereaux."

"I have never met him--of what corps?"

"I don't know."

"To Mike's cottage with her, and lose no time. Here my lads, all of you go to Trevanion's Tavern, and score to me what you drink. The night is rough and wet."

"Thank'ee sir," replied Treherne, while the others all bowed and scraped and pulled their forelocks; "my old woman 'll keep the young lady safe, till her pony-kittereen or your carriage comes for her; and we'll drink your health, and Mr. Trevelyan's too--aye, and the old Cornish toast of 'Fish, tin, and copper,' in summat better than Devonshire cider."

So, while Sybil in Audley's care was taken to the cottage of the old miner, and the latter with those who had joined in the search departed to enjoy the bounty of the General, the latter limped off to visit Constance and relate the story of her daughter's escape and safety.