Gradually, the season passed and the desert land blushed briefly-tiny spots of crimson and gold flowers flecked the bleak hillsides-and then the sun entered its summer house and the heat began to oppress us mercilessly. I could match neither the Sea Wolves' ardour nor their greed, and so the work went ill with me. As summer progressed the mine-shafts grew hot and stifling; the dust choked me, the darkness weakened my vision. I continually knocked elbows and knees, arms and legs against the rocks, and the oil lamps burned my hair. I found the dull gleam of silver meagre compensation for the loss of my freedom and slow starvation.
Gunnar bore the hardship more easily than I, maintaining an even temper, encouraging me when my spirits faltered. To take my mind from my misery, he made me talk to him about the Christ, which I did, at first grudgingly, though as time went on I found maintaining such virulent rancour tedious. Sure, I still felt a cold, hard place in my soul, and my resentment towards God was more, not less. But arguing over theology gave us something to occupy our minds, which is the better part of survival, I believe.
In our quiet periods, when the guards were close by, he would think about all I told him. Then, at meals, or when we reached the vein we were working-far from the guards' eyes and ears-he would ask me questions that had occurred to him. In this way we proceeded, and he began to learn some skill in close-reasoned argument. His was a practical mind, not quick or nimble, but solid and untroubled by much in the way of extraneous philosophy. Thus, most of what I told him came to him fresh, and the few superstitions that he held were easily swept away. In short, he revealed a genuine facility for the subject at hand.
Even though I no longer believed…no, I did still believe, but as one rejected by God-cast out from the hearth of faith, as it were-I found to my surprise that I could speak the words of faith, and explain them, without having them touch me. Strange perhaps, to be so angry at God and yet eagerly participate in reasoned discourse about him and the wonder of his ways, but that is the way of it. Curious, too, that Gunnar's interest in the faith should increase as my own waned.
As summer drew on, the vein of ore our group had been working dwindled. Eight of us were taken to another pit nearby and put to work with the fifty or more slaves who laboured there. This pit was larger than the one we had left, with more shafts and tunnels and corridors. There were Bulgars among the slaves, as well as Greeks, and several black Ethiopians, along with some others. Gunnar and I had never seen a black man before, but after getting used to them, we agreed that they were a handsome race in all. Perhaps slavery makes a man look at such things differently, but, save for the swart hue of their skin, they seemed more like us than not.
We seldom saw them, however, because the pit overseer was a harsh and cruel master who made them rise before dawn to begin work; thus, they were already toiling away by the time we arrived. Likewise, they were made to work past dark, so that we quit the mine before they did.
A few days after starting at the new pit, Gunnar found a particularly productive vein which lay at the end of a long tunnel that had not been worked recently. We crawled in on hands and knees, clutching our oil lamps and pushing our tools ahead of us.
When we came to the end of the shaft, Gunnar stood up. "Look here, Aeddan," he said, raising his lamp. "There is no roof."
Standing beside him, I looked up to see that indeed the shaft had opened out into a wide crevice whose top, if there was one, was somewhere far above us, lost in the darkness our feeble lights could not penetrate. "There is much silver here, I think," he observed. "We will get a-"
"Listen!" I hissed.
"What is the-"
"Shh! Be quiet!"
We listened for a moment, holding our lamps high in the silence.
"There is noth-" Gunnar began.
"There it is again!" I insisted. "Listen!"
The faint echo of the sound I had heard was already fading, and the sound did not come again. "Did you hear it?" I said.
"It was water dripping," Gunnar confirmed.
"Not water," I replied. "Singing-someone was singing. It sounded like Irish."
"You are hearing things," he answered, placing his lamp in a notch someone had carved. "It was water dripping. Come, let us find some silver or we will not get anything to eat today."
