Altogether, it formed a sort of crude, counterbalanced elevator, by which they might lower themselves into the shaft, with various bumpings and delays,--but which worked successfully, nevertheless.

Together they piled into the big, iron bucket.

Harry lugging along spikes and timbers and sledges and ropes.
Then, pulling away at the cable which held the weights, they furnished the necessary gravity to travel downward.
An eerie journey, faced on one side by the crawling rope of the skip as it traveled along the rusty old track on its watersoaked ties, on the others by the still dripping timbers of the aged shaft and its broken, rotting ladder, while the carbide lanterns cast shadows about, while the pulley above creaked and the eroded wheels of the skip squeaked and protested! Downward--a hundred feet--and they collided with the upward-bound skip, to fend off from it and start on again.

The air grew colder, more moist.

The carbides spluttered and flared.