For several weeks he toiled strenuously under the blinking fish-oil lamps in the shadowy adit, but there was now, as his companions noticed, a change in his mood.

The grimness which had characterized him had vanished.

In place of toiling in savage silence he laughed cheerfully when there was any cause for it, and showed some consideration for his personal safety.

He handled the sticks of giant-powder with due circumspection, and no longer exposed himself to any unnecessary hazard from falling stones.

The man was softer, more human, and on occasion whimsical.
For all that, the work was pushed on as determinedly as before, and both Saunders and Devine experienced the same difficulty in keeping pace with their comrade's efforts, though they had grown hard and lean and their hands were deeply scarred.