The stairway went down for perhaps two dozen steps and then levelled off into a tunnel that went at least as far as Jack's torch (which had consumed most of its fuel) could throw light. He lit a kienspan, which burnt a little brighter, but he still could not see the end of the tunnel, which was good, and to be expected. He began running along in a kind of crouch, not wanting to smash his head on the ceiling timbers, and after a minute, passed by a hand-haspel crammed into a niche in the tunnel wall, its ropes descending into a shaft. A minute later he passed by another, then another, and finally he stopped and decided he should just go down one of those shafts. He'd been down here long enough to stop being so proud of his own cleverness, and he'd begun to worry. The Hexen knew the territory better than he. They couldn't not know that the building was a mine entrance, and they must have anticipated that he'd find the tunnel. Perhaps the mine had other entrances, and they'd soon be coming down with torches and dogs and God knows what, as when they hunted burrowing vermin with their sausage-shaped dogs.