The yoke of Poverty galled him exceedingly, and he hated his taskmistress with a most rancorous hatred.

As he climbed up or down the dripping ladders, descending from sollar to sollar towards the level where he worked, he would set his teeth grimly that he might not curse aloud an oath underground being an invitation to the Evil One but in his heart the muffled curses were audible enough. And when he was at work in the dreary level, with the darkness lying on his shoulder like a hand, and the candles shining unsteadily through the gloom, like little evil winking eyes, he brooded so moodily over his bondage to Poverty, that he desired to break from it at any cost.

“I’d risk a lem for its weight in gowld: darned ef I wedn’!” he muttered savagely, as he dug at the stubborn rock with his pick.

He could hear the sounds of blasting in other levels the explosions travelling to him in a muffled boom and above him, for he was working beneath the bed of the ocean, he could faintly distinguish the grinding of the sea as the huge waves wallowed and roared across the beach.

“I’m sick to death o’ this here life,” he grumbled; “I’d give a haand or a’ eye for a pot o’ suvrins. Iss, I’d risk more than that,” he added darkly: letting the words ooze out as if under his breath.

At that moment his pick detached a piece of rock which came crashing down on the floor of the level, splintering into great jagged fragments as it fell.

He started back with an exclamation of uncontrollable surprise. The falling rock had disclosed the interior of a cavern whose outlines were lost in impenetrable gloom, but which here and there in a vague fashion, as it caught the light of the candle flickering in his hat, seemed to sparkle as if its walls were crusted with silver.

“Lor’ Jimmeny, this es bra’ an’ queer!” he gasped.

As he leaned on his pick, peering into the cavern with covetous eyes, but with a wildly-leaping heart, he was aware of an odd movement among the shadows which were elusively outlined by the light of his dip.

It was almost as though some of them had an independent individuality, and could have detached themselves from their roots if they wished.

It was certain a squat, hump-backed blotch, that was sprawling blackly beside a misshapen block, was either wriggling on the floor as if trying to stand upright . . . or else there was something wrong with his eyes.

He stared at the wavering gloom in the cavern, with its quaint, angular splashes of glister, where heads of quartz and patches of mundic caught the light from the unsteady flame of the candle, and presently he was certain that the shadows were alive.

Most of all he was sure that the little hump-backed oddity had risen to its feet and was a veritable creature: an actual uncouth, shambling grotesque, instead of a mere flat blotch of shadow.

Up waddled the little hump-back to the hole in the wall where Joel stood staring, leaning on his pick.

“What can I do for’ee, friend?” he asked huskily: his voice sounding faint, hoarse, and muffled, as if it were coming from an immense distance, or as if the squat little frame had merely borrowed it for the nonce.

Joel stared at the speaker, with his lower jaw dropping.

“What can I do for’ee, friend?” asked the hump-back; peering at the grimy, half-naked miner, with his little ferrety eyes glowing luminously.

Joel moistened his lips with his tongue before he answered. “Nawthin’, plaise, sir,” he gasped out, quakingly.

“Nonsense, my man!” said the hump-back pleasantly, rubbing his hands cheerfully together as he spoke. And Joel noticed that the fingers, though long and skinny almost wrinkled and lean enough, in fact, to pass for claws were adorned with several sparkling rings. “Nonsense, my man! I’m your friend if you’ll let me be. O never mind my hump, if it’s that that’s frightening you, I got that through a fall a long while ago,” and the lean brown face puckered into a smile. “Come! In what way can I oblige’ee, friend? I can grant you any wish you like. Say the word and it’s done! Just think what you could do if you had heaps of money, now piles of suvrins in that owld chest in your bedroom, instead o’ they paltry two-an’-twenty suvrins which you now got heeded away in the skibbet.”

Joel stared at the speaker with distended eyes: the great beads of perspiration gathering on his forehead.

“How ded’ee come to knaw they was there?” he asked.

“I knaw more than that,” said the hump-back, laughing. “I could tell’ee a thing or two, b’leeve, if I wanted to. I knaw tin, cumraade, as well as the next.” And with that he began to chuckle to himself.

“Wedn’ee like they two-an’-twenty suvrins in the skibbet made a hunderd-an’-twenty?” asked the hump-back insinuatingly.

“Iss, by Gosh, I should!” said Joel.

“Then gi’me your haand on it, cumraade; an’ you shall have ’em!”

“Here goes, then!” said Joel, thrusting out his hand.

The hump-back seized the proffered hand in an instant, covering the grimy fingers with his own lean claws.

“Oh, le’go! le’go!” shouted Joel.

The hump-back grinned; his black eyes glittering.

“I waan’t be niggardly to’ee, cumraade,” said he. “Every drop o’ blood you choose to shed for the purpose shall turn into a golden suvrin for’ee there!”

“Darn’ee! thee ben an’ run thy nails in me see!”

And Joel shewed a drop of blood oozing from his wrist.

“Try the charm, man! Wish! Hold un out, an’ say, Wan!”

Joel held out his punctured wrist mechanically.

“Wan!”

There was a sudden gleam and down dropped a sovereign: a bright gold coin that rang sharply as it fell.

“Try agen!” said the hump-back, grinning delightedly.

Joel stooped first to pick up the coin, and bit it eagerly.

“Ay, good Gosh! ’tes gowld, sure ’nuff!”

“Try agen!” said the hump-back “Make up a pile!”

Joel held out his wrist and repeated the formula.

“Wan!”

And another coin clinked at his feet.

“I needn’ wait no longer, s’pose?” said the hump-back.

“Wan!” cried Joel. And a third coin dropped.

He leaned on his pick and kept coining his blood eagerly, till presently there was quite a little pile at his feet.

The hump-back watched him intently for a time: but Joel appeared to be oblivious of his presence; and the squat little figure stealthily disappeared.

The falling coins kept chiming melodiously, till presently the great stalwart miner had to lean against the wall of the level to support himself. So tired as he was, he had never felt before. But give over his task he either could not, or would not. The chink of the gold-pieces he must hear if he died for it. He looked down at them greedily. “Wan! . . . Wan! . . . Wan! . . .”

Presently he tottered, and fell over on his heap.

At that same moment the halting little hump-back stole out from the shadows immediately behind him, and leaned over Joel, rubbing his hands gleefully.

“I must catch his soul,” said the little black man.

And with that he turned Joel’s head round sharply, and held his hand to the dying man’s mouth.

Just then there fluttered up to Joel’s lips a tiny yellow flame, which, for some reason or other, seemed as agitated as if it had a human consciousness. One might almost have imagined it perceived the little hump-back, and knew full well who and what he was.

But there on Joel’s lips the flame hung quivering. And now a deeper shadow fell upon his face.

Surely the tiny thing shuddered with horror as the hump-back’s black paws closed upon it!

But, in any case, it now was safely prisoned. And the little black man laughed long and loudly.

“Not so bad a bargain after all!” chuckled he.

Footnote:

To “knaw tin” is among the miners of Cornwall a sign of, and a colloquial euphemism for, cleverness.