By this time a whole village was up: and windlasses, ropes,
poles, candles, lanterns, all things necessary, were fast
collecting and being brought into one place, to be carried to the
Old Hell Shaft.
It seemed now hours and hours since she had left the lost man lying
in the grave where he had been buried alive. She could not bear to
remain away from it any longer - it was like deserting him - and
she hurried swiftly back, accompanied by half-a-dozen labourers,
including the drunken man whom the news had sobered, and who was
the best man of all. When they came to the Old Hell Shaft, they
found it as lonely as she had left it. The men called and listened
as she had done, and examined the edge of the chasm, and settled
how it had happened, and then sat down to wait until the implements
they wanted should come up.
Every sound of insects in the air, every stirring of the leaves,
every whisper among these men, made Sissy tremble, for she thought
it was a cry at the bottom of the pit. But the wind blew idly over
it, and no sound arose to the surface, and they sat upon the grass,
waiting and waiting.
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