A Perilous Secret Part 51

He could say no more, but fell into a sort of doze, the result of the powerful stimulant on his enfeebled frame and empty stomach. Then Bartley, with trembling hands, brought out a map of the mine and showed Walter where the second party had got to.

"See," said he, "they are within twenty feet of the bottom, and the hall is twenty-three feet high. Hope measured it. Give up working downward, pick into the sides of that hall, for in that hall I see them at night; sometimes they are alive, sometimes they are dead, sometimes they are dying. I shall go mad, I shall go mad!"

With this he went raging about, giving the wildest orders, with the looks and tones of a madman. In a minute he had a cage ready for Walter, and twenty fresh-lit lamps, and down went Walter with more men and pickaxes.

As soon as he got out of the cage he cried, wildly, "Stop that, men, and do as I do."

He took a sweep with his pick, and delivered a horizontal blow at the clay on that side of the shaft Bartley had told him to attack. His pickaxe stuck in it, and he extricated it with difficulty.

"Nay, master," cried a miner who had fallen in love with him, "drive thy pick at t' coal."

Walter then observed that above the clay there was a narrow seam of coal; he heaved his pick again, but instead of striking it half downward, as he ought to have done, he delivered a tremendous horizontal blow that made the coal ring like a church bell, and jarred his own stout arms so terribly that the pick fell out of his numbed hand.

Then the man who had advised him saw that he was disabled for a time, and stepped into his place.

But in that short interval an incident occurred so strange and thrilling that the stout miners uttered treble cries, like women, and then one mighty "Hah!" burst like a diapason from their manly bosoms.

CHAPTER XXIII.

BURIED ALIVE.--THE THREE DEADLY PERILS.

Seven miners were buried under the ruins of the shaft; but although ma.s.ses of coal and clay fell into the hall from the side nearest to the explosions, and blocked up some of the pa.s.sages, n.o.body was crushed to death there; only the smoke was so stifling that it seemed impossible to live.

That smoke was lighter than the air; its thick pall lifted by degrees and revealed three figures.

Grace Hope, by happy instinct, had sunk upon the ground to breathe in that stifling smoke. Hope, who had collared Ben Burnley, had sunk to the ground with him, but still clutched the a.s.sa.s.sin. These were the three left alive in the hall, and this was their first struggle for life.

As soon as it was possible to speak Hope took up his lamp, which had fallen, and holding it up high, he cried, "Grace, my child, where are you?" She came to him directly; he took her in his arms and thanked G.o.d for this great preservation.

Then he gave Burnley a kick, and ordered him to the right hand of the hall. "You'll keep to that side," he said, "and think of what you have done; your victims will keep this side, and comfort each other till honest men undo your work, you villain."

Burnley crouched, and wriggled away like a whipped hound, and flung himself down in bitter despair.

"Oh, papa," said Grace, "we have escaped a great danger, but shall we ever see the light of day?"

"Of course we shall, child; be sure that great efforts will be made to save us. Miners have their faults, but leaving other men to perish is not one of them; there are no greater heroes in the world than those rough fellows, with all their faults. What you and I must do at once is to search for provisions and lamps and tools; if there are no poisonous gases set free, it is a mere question of time. My poor child has a hard life before her; but only live, and we shall be rescued."

These brave words comforted Grace, as they were intended to do, and she accompanied her father down the one pa.s.sage which was left open after the explosion. Fortunately this led to a new working, and before he had gone many yards Hope found a lamp that had been dropped by some miner who had rushed into the hall as the first warning came. Hope extinguished the light, and gave it to Grace.

"That will be twenty-four hours' light to us," said he; "but, oh, what I want to find is food. There must be some left behind."

"Papa," said Grace, "I think I saw a miner throw a bag into an empty truck when the first alarm was given."

"Back! back! my child!" cried Hope, "before that villain finds it!"

He did not wait for her but ran back, and he found Ben Burnley in the neighborhood of that very truck: but Burnley sneaked off at his approach. Hope, looking into the truck, found treasures--a dozen new sacks, a heavy hammer, a small bag of nails, a can of tea, and a bag with a loaf in it, and several broken pieces of bread. He put his lamp out directly, for he had lucifer-matches in his pocket, and he hid the bag of bread; then he lighted his lamp again and fastened it up by a nail in the centre of the hall.

"There," said he to Burnley, "that's to light us both equally; when it goes out you must hang up yours in its place."

"That's fair," said Burnley, humbly.

There were two trucks on Hope's side of the hall--the empty one in question, and one that was full of coal. Both stood about two yards from Hope's side of the hall. Hope turned the empty truck and brought it parallel to the other; then he nailed two sacks together, and fastened them to the coal truck and the debris; then he laid sacks upon the ground for Grace to lie on, and he kept two sacks for himself, and two in reserve, and he took two and threw them to Ben Burnley.

"I give you two, and I keep two myself," said he. "But my daughter shall have a room to herself even here; and if you molest her I'll brain you with this hammer."

"I don't want to molest her," said Burnley. "It ain't my fault she's here."

Then there was a gloomy silence, and well there might be. The one lamp, twinkling faintly against the wall, did but make darkness visible, and revealed the horror of this dismal scene. The weary hours began to crawl away, marked only by Hope's watch, for in this living tomb summer was winter, and day was night.

The horrors of entombment in a mine have, we think, been described better than any other calamity which befalls living men. Inspired by this subject novelists have gone beyond themselves, journalists have gone beyond themselves; and, without any affectation, we say we do not think we could go through the dismal scene before us in its general details without falling below many gifted contemporaries, and adding bulk without value to their descriptions. The true characteristic feature of _this_ sad scene was not, we think, the alternations of hope and despair, nor the gradual sinking of frames exhausted by hunger and thirst, but the circ.u.mstance that here an a.s.sa.s.sin and his victims were involved in one terrible calamity; and as one day succeeded to another, and the hoped for rescue came not, the hatred of the a.s.sa.s.sin and his victims was sometimes at odds with the fellows.h.i.+p that sprang out of a joint calamity. About twelve hours after the explosion Burnley detected Hope and his daughter eating, and moistening their lips with the tea and a spoonful of brandy that Hope had poured into it out of his flask to keep it from turning sour.

"What, haven't you a morsel for me?" said the ruffian, in a piteous voice.

Hope gave a sort of snarl of contempt, but still he flung a crust to him as he would to a dog.

Then, after some slight hesitation, Grace rose quietly and took the smaller can, and tilled it with tea, and took it across to him.

"There," said she, "and may G.o.d forgive you."

He took it and stared at her.

"It ain't my fault that you are here," said he; but she put up her hand as much as to say, "No idle words."

Two whole days had now elapsed. The food, though economized, was all gone. Burnley's lamp was flickering, and utter darkness was about to be added to the horrors which were now beginning to chill the hopes with which these poor souls had entered on their dire probation. Hope took the alarm, seized the expiring lamp, trimmed it, and carried it down the one pa.s.sage that was open. This time he did not confine his researches to the part where he could stand upright, but went on his hands and knees down the newest working. At the end of it he gave a shout of triumph, and in a few minutes returned to his daughter exhausted, and blackened all over with coal; but the lamp was now burning brightly in his hand, and round his neck was tied a can of oil.

"Oh, my poor father," said Grace, "is that all you have discovered?"

"Thank G.o.d for it," said Hope. "You little know what it would be to pa.s.s two more days here without light, as well as without food."

The next day was terrible. The violent pangs of hunger began to gnaw like vultures, and the thirst was still more intolerable; the pangs of hunger intermitted for hours at a time, and then returned to intermit again: they exhausted but did not infuriate; but the rage of thirst became incessant and maddening. Ben Burnley suffered the most from this, and the wretch came to Hope for consolation.

"Where's the sense of biding here," said he, "to be burned to deeth wi'

drought? Let's flood the mine, and drink or be drooned."

"How can I flood the mine?" said Hope.

"Yow know best, maister," said the man. "Why, how many tons of water did ye draw from yon tank every day?"

"We conduct about five tons into a pit, and we send about five tons up to the surface daily."

"Then how much water will there be in the tank now?"