"Then, so far as I can see, we are shut up here like two rats in a trap."
"Yes," cried Connell, "and here comes the rat-catchers after us now!"
As he spoke he pointed to the outer entrance, where the head and shoulders of a man had just appeared above the rocky ledge.
After supper that same evening the violence of Ralph Darrell's rage had so subsided that his daughter ventured to inquire concerning its cause. When he had informed her, she said:
"Why should you let a little thing like that worry you, papa? Surely you can engage plenty more miners if you want them. I don't see why you should bother with the old mine, though. It don't seem to be worth anything."
"Not worth anything!" cried the old man, standing up in his excitement. "Why, child, it is worth millions! It is one of the richest copper properties in the world, and in one week's time it will be all my own. Rather, it will be yours, since it is for you alone that I have lived in this wilderness all these years, thereby saving it from destruction, and warding off the conspiracy that would reduce you to beggary. For your sake only have I so guarded the secret of its wealth that no living soul suspects it. Even the men who delve in its depths know not the value of the material in which they toil, for I have not told them. Nor have I allowed an assay to be made of its smallest fragment; but I know its worth, its fabulous value, that will make the owner of the Copper Princess one of the richest heiresses in the world."
"Who is the Copper Princess, papa?" asked the girl, who, though bewildered by the old man's extravagant statements, could not help but be interested in them.
"You are, my darling, you are a copper princess; but the name also applies to your mine, and was given to it before you were born. 'Darrell's Folly' is what men, in their ignorance, call it now, but in one week's time it may assume its rightful title, and thereafter the fame of the Copper Princess will spread far and wide."
"But why not let people call the mine by its real name now, papa? What difference will one week make?"
"Because," replied Ralph Darrell, bending towards his daughter, and lowering his voice almost to a whisper, as though fearful of being overheard, "in one week's time--only one week from this very day--the contract will expire, and the heirs of Richard Peveril can make no claim."