A Perilous Secret Part 53

"Men and angels cry out against it!" he screamed, in madness and despair.

"Can this thing be? Can Heaven and earth look calmly on and see this horror? Are men all ingrat.i.tude? IS G.o.d ALL APATHY?"

A blow like a hammer striking a church bell tinkled outside the wall, and seemed to come from a great distance.

To him who, like the rugged Elijah, had expostulated so boldly with his Maker, and his Maker, who is not to be irritated, forgave him, that blow seemed at first to ring from heaven. He stood still, and trembled like a leaf; he listened; the sound was not repeated.

"Ah," said he, "it was an illusion like hers."

But for all that he seized his hammer, and darted to the back of the hall, and mounting on a huge fragment of coal struck the seam high above his head. He gave two blows at longish intervals, and then three blows in quick succession.

Grace heard, and began to raise herself on her hands in wonder.

Outside the wall came two leisurely blows that seemed a mile off, though they were not ten feet, and then three blows in quick succession.

"My signal echoed," yelled Hope. "Do you hear, child, my signal answered?

Thank G.o.d! thank G.o.d! thank G.o.d!"

He fell on his knees and cried like a child. The next minute, burning with hope and joy, he was by Grace's side, with his arms round her.

"You can't give way now. Fight on a few minutes more. Death, I defy you; I am a father; I tear my child from your clutches." With this he raised her in his arms with surprising vigor. It was Grace's turn to shake off all weakness, under the great excitement of the brain.

"Yes, I'll live," she cried, "I'll live for you. Oh, the gallant men!

Hear, hear the pickaxes at work; an army is coming to our rescue, father; the G.o.d you doubted sends them, and some hero leads them."

The words had scarcely left her lips when Hope set her down in fresh alarm. An enemy's pickaxe was at work to destroy them; Burnley was picking furiously at the weak part of the tank, shrieking, "They will tear me to pieces; there is no hope in this world nor the next for me."

"Madman," cried Hope--"he'll let the water in before they can save us."

He rushed at Burnley and seized him; but his frenzy was gone, and Burnley's was upon him; after a short struggle Burnley flung him off with prodigious power. Hope flew at him again, but incautiously, and the savage lowering his head, drove it with such fury into Hope's chest that he sent him to a distance, and laid him flat on his back utterly breathless. Grace flew to him and raised him.

He was not a man to lose his wits. "To the truck," he gasped, "or we are lost."

"I'll flood the mine! I'll flood the mine!" yelled Burnley.

Hope made his daughter mount a large fragment of coal we have already mentioned, and from that she sprang to the truck, and with her excitement and with her athletic power she raised herself into the full truck, and even helped her father in after her. But just as she got him on to the truck, and while he was still only on his knees, that section of the wall we have called the tank rent and gaped under Burnley's pickaxe, and presently exploded about six feet from the ground, and a huge volume of water drove ma.s.ses of earth and coal before it, and came roaring like a solid body straight at the coal truck, and drove it against the opposite wall, smashed the nearest side in, and would have thrown Grace off it like a feather, but Hope, kneeling and clinging to the side, held her like a vise.

Grace screamed violently. Immediately there was a roar of exultation outside from the hitherto silent workers; for that scream told that the _woman_ was alive, too: the wife of the brave fellow who had won all their hearts and melted away the icy barrier of cla.s.s.

Three gigantic waves struck the truck and made it quiver.

The first came half-way up; the second came full two-thirds; the third dashed the senseless body of Ben Burnley, with bleeding head and broken bones, against the very edge of the truck, then surged back with him into a whirling vortex.

Grace screamed continuously; she gave herself up now for lost; and the louder she screamed, the louder and the nearer the saving party shouted and hurrahed.

"No, do not fear," cried Hope; "you shall not die. Love is stronger than death."

The words were scarce out of his mouth when the point of a steel pick came clean through the stuff; another followed above it; then another, then another, and then another. Holes were made; then gaps, then larger gaps, then a ma.s.s of coal fell in; furious picks--a portion of the mine knocked away--and there stood in a red blaze of lamps held up, the gallant band roaring, shouting, working, led by a stalwart giant with bare arms, begrimed and bleeding, face smoked, hair and eyebrows black with coal-dust, and eyes flaming like red coals. He sprang with one fearless bound down to the coal-truck, and caught up his wife in his arms, and held her to his panting bosom. Ropes, ladder, everything--and they were saved; while the corpse of the a.s.sa.s.sin whirled round and round in the subsiding eddies of the black water, and as that water ran away into the mine, lay, coated with mud, at the feet of those who had saved his innocent victims.

CHAPTER XXIV.

STRANGE COMPLICATIONS.

Exert all the powers of your mind, and conceive, if you can, what that mother felt whose only son sickened, and, after racking her heart with hopes and fears, died before her eyes, and was placed in his coffin and carried to his rest. Yet One in the likeness of a man bade the bearers stand still, then, with a touch, made the coffin open, the dead come back, blooming with youth and health, and handed him to his mother.

That picture no mortal mind can realize; but the effort will take you so far as this: you may imagine what Walter Clifford felt when, almost at the climax of despair, he received from that living tomb the good and beautiful creature who was the light of his eyes and the darling of his heart.

How he gloated on her! How he murmured words of comfort and joy over her as the cage carried her and Hope and him up again into the blessed suns.h.i.+ne! And there, what a burst of exultation and honest rapture received them!

Everybody was there. The news of Hope's signal had been wired to the surface. An old original telegraph had been set up by Colonel Clifford, and its arms set flying to tell him. That old campaigner was there, with his spring break and mattresses, and an able physician. Bartley was there, pale and old, and trembling, and crying. He fell on his knees before Hope and Grace. She drew back from him with repulsion; but he cried out, "No matter! no matter! They are saved! they are saved!"

Walter carried her to his father, and left Bartley kneeling. Then he dashed back for Hope, who did not move, and found him on his knees insensible. A piece of coal, driven by one of the men's picks, had struck him on the temple. The gallant fellow had tried to hide his hurt with his handkerchief, but the handkerchief was soaked with blood, and the man, exhausted by hunger, violent emotions, and this last blow, felt neither his trouble nor his joy. He was lifted with tender pity into the break, and the blood stanched, and stimulants applied by the doctor. But Grace would have his head on her bosom, and her hand in Walter's. Fortunately, the doctor was no other than that physician who had attended Colonel Clifford in his dangerous attack of internal gout. We say fortunately, for patients who have endured extremities of hunger have to be treated with very great skill and caution. Gentle stimulants and mucilages must precede solid food, and but a little of anything be taken at a time.

Doctor Garner began his treatment in the very break. The first spoonful of egg and brandy told upon Grace Hope. Her deportment had been strange.

She had seemed confused at times, and now and then she would cast a look of infinite tenderness upon Walter, and then again she would knit her brow and seem utterly puzzled.

But now she gave Walter a look that brought him nearer to her, and she said, with a heavenly smile, "You love me best; better than the other."

Then she began to cry over her father.

"Better than the other," said Walter, aloud. "What other?"

"Be quiet," said the doctor. "Do you really think her stomach can be empty for six days, and her head be none the worse? Come, my dear, another spoonful. Good girl! Now et me look at you, Mr. Walter."

"Why, what is the matter with _him_?" said the Colonel. "I never saw him look better in all my life."

"Indeed! Red spots on his cheek-bones, ditto on his temples, and his eyes glaring."

"Excitement and happiness," said Walter.

The doctor took no notice of him. "He has been outraging nature,"

said he, "and she will have her revenge. We are not out of the wood yet, Colonel Clifford, and you had better put them all three under my command."

"I do, my good friend; I do," said Colonel Clifford, eagerly. "It is your department, and I don't believe in two commanders."

They drew up at the great door of Clifford Hall. It seemed to open of itself, and there were all the servants drawn up in two lines.

They all showed eager sympathy, but only John Baker and Mrs. Milton ventured to express it. "G.o.d bless you all!" said Colonel Clifford. "But it is our turn now. They are all in the doctor's hands. My whole household obey him to the letter. It is my order. Doctor Garner, this is Mrs. Milton, my housekeeper. You will find her a good lieutenant."

"Mrs. Milton," said the doctor, sharply, "warm baths in three rooms, and to bed with this lot. Carry Mr. Hope up; he is my first patient. Bring me eggs, milk, brandy, new port-wine. Cook!"

"Sir?"

"Hammer three chickens to pieces with your rolling-pin, then mince them; then chuck them into a big pot with cold water, stew them an hour, and then boil them to a jelly, strain, and serve. Meantime, send up three slices of mutton half raw; we will do a little chewing, not much."

The patients submitted like lambs, only Walter grumbled a little, but at last confessed to a headache and sudden weariness.