CHAPTER NINETEEN.
LABORARE EST ORARE.
Six men sat upon six heaps of small coal in a long rectangular cavernfive feet high and six feet broad. The roof was supported by propsplaced at distances specified by the Board of Trade. One side of thecavern was pierced at regular intervals by narrow openings which werein reality passages; the other was a blank wall of gleaming coal.
This was the "face"--that point in the seam of coal which marked thelimits of progress of the ever-advancing line of picks and shovels.
The men were well over two hundred fathoms--roughly a quarter of amile--below the surface of the earth, and they had been prisoners inNumber Three Working ever since an explosion of fire-damp andcoal-dust had cut them off from communication with the rest of BeltonPit six hours before.
The prisoners were Jim Carthew, Amos Entwistle, and Adam Wilkie,together with a hewer, a drawer, and a pit-boy, named Atkinson,Denton, and Hopper respectively. There had been two others, but theylay dead and buried beneath a tombstone twelve hundred feet high.
What had happened was this.
About four o'clock on that disastrous afternoon, Amos Entwistle wassitting despondently in his own kitchen. He was the oldest and mostinfluential overman in Belton Pit, but his counsels of moderation hadbeen swept aside by the floods of Mr Winch's oratory; and like thepractical creature that he was he had returned home, to await theissue of the insurrection and establish an alibi in the event ofpolice-court proceedings.
To him entered Mr Adam Wilkie, with the news that some of the moreardent iconoclasts of the day-shift had remained below in the pit, inorder to break down the roofs of some of the galleries leading to theworkings--an amiable and short-sighted enterprise which, thoughpleasantly irritating to their employer, must inevitably throw itspromoters and most of their friends out of work for an indefiniteperiod.
Here at least was an opportunity to act. Entwistle hastily repaired tothe pit-offices, where he knew that Mr Carthew had been spending theafternoon; and the three, united for the moment by the bond ofcommon-sense, if nothing else, dropped down the shaft with all speed.Fortunately the man in charge of the winding-engine was still at hispost, and of an amenable disposition.
Arrived at the pit bottom, they hurried along the main road. Theatmosphere was foul and close, for the ventilating machinery hadceased to work. There was a high percentage of fire-damp, too, asconstant little explosions in their Davy lamps informed them.
Presently they overtook the enemy, who had done a good deal ofmischief already; for they had set to work in the long tunnel known asthe intake, down which fresh air was accustomed to flow to the distantworkings; and at every blow of their picks, a pit-prop fell from itsposition and an overhead beam followed, bringing down with it amingled shower of stone and rubbish.
There was no time to be lost, for the whole roof might fall at anymoment. It was three against five; but authority is a great asset andconscience a great liability. By adopting a "hustling" policy of themost thorough description, Carthew, Entwistle, and Wilkie houndedtheir slightly demoralised opponents along the intake towards theface, intending to round up the gang in one of the passages leadingback to the main road, and, having pursued the policy of peacefuldissuasion to its utmost limits, conduct their converts back to theshaft.
The tide of battle rolled out of the intake into the cavern formed bythe face and its approaches. Master Hopper was the first to arrive,the toe of Mr Entwistle's boot making a good second.
"Now, you men," said Carthew, addressing the sullen, panting figureswhich crouched before him--the roof here was barely five feet abovethe floor--"we have had enough of this. Get out into the main road andback to the shaft. You are coming up topside of this pit withus--that's flat!"
But his opponents were greater strategists than he supposed.
"Keep them there, chaps!" cried a voice already far down one of thepassages.
"Catch that man!" cried Carthew. "Let me go!"
Shaking off Atkinson, who in obedience to orders had made ahalf-hearted grab at him, he darted down the nearest passage. It ledto the main road, but across the mouth hung a wet brattice-cloth.Delayed a moment, he hurried on towards the junction with the mainroad, just in time to descry two twinkling Davy lamps disappearinground the distant corner. They belonged to Davies and Renwick, theringleaders of the gang. What their object might be he could not forthe moment divine, but he could hear their voices re-echoing down thesilent tunnel. Evidently they were making for the main road, perhapsto raid the engine-room or call up reserves. He must keep them insight. Laboriously he hastened along the rough and narrow track.
Suddenly, far ahead in the darkness, he heard a crash, followed by afrightened shriek. Next moment there was a roar, which almost brokethe drums of his ears, and the whole pit seemed to plunge and stagger.His lamp went out, and he lay upon the floor in the darkness--darknessthat could be felt--waiting for the roof to fall in.
* * * * *
Renwick and Davies, it was discovered long afterwards, had reached themain road, running rapidly. Here one of them must have tripped overthe slack-lying wire cable which drew the little tubs of coal up theincline from the lyes to the foot of the shaft. Two seconds later atiny puddle of flaming oil from a broken lamp (which for once in a wayhad not been extinguished by its fall) had supplied the necessaryignition to the accumulated fire-damp and coal-dust of theunventilated pit. There was one tremendous explosion. Down came theroof of the main road for a distance of over half a mile, burying theauthors of the catastrophe, Samson-like, in their own handiwork.
* * * * *
The survivors were sitting in the _cul-de-sac_ formed by the face ofthe coal and its approaches, three-quarters of a mile from the shaft.No one had been injured by the explosion, though Carthew, beingnearest, had lain half-stunned for a few minutes. Possibly thebrattice-cloths hung at intervals across the ways to direct theair-currents had been instrumental in blanketing its force.
The party had just returned from an investigation of the possibilitiesof escape.
"Will you report, Mr Entwistle?" said Carthew, who found that thesurviving mutineers appeared to regard him as the supreme head of thepresent enterprise and Entwistle as his chief adviser.
Amos Entwistle complied.
There were two ways, he explained in his broad north-country dialect,by which Number Three could be reached from the shaft. One was theintake, along which fresh air was conducted to the workings, and theother was the main road, which could be reached through any of thepassages leading away from the face. The explosion in the main roadhad brought down the roof for a distance which might be almostanything. The intake was blocked too. It was some way from the sceneof the explosion, but the props were gone, and the roof had come downfrom end to end, for all he knew.
"Is there no other way out?" said Carthew.
"None, sir."
Carthew indicated the row of openings beside them.
"Don't any of these lead anywhere?"
"They all lead to the main road, except that one at the end, whichleads to the intake. We have plenty of room to move about, and plentyof air; but we are shut in, and that's a fact, sir."
"Is that your opinion too, Mr Wilkie?"
"We canna get gettin' oot o' this, sir," replied the oracle withcomplacent finality.
There was a deathlike silence. Then Master Hopper began to cry softly.He was going to die, he reflected between his sobs, and he was veryyoung to do so. It was hard luck his being there at all. He had onlyjoined the riot from youthful exuberance and a desire to be "in thehearse," as an old Scottish lady once bitterly observed of a toopushful mourner at her husband's funeral. He entertained no personalanimosity against the owner of the pit: in fact he had never set eyeson him. His desire had merely been to see the fun. Well, he was seeingit. He wept afresh.
Atkinson and Denton sat and gazed helplessly at Carthew. The part theyhad played in sealing up six souls in the bow
els of the earth hadfaded from their minds: to be just, it had faded from the minds oftheir companions as well. The past lay buried with Renwick and Davies.The future occupied their entire attention.
There was another danger to be considered--the suffocating after-dampof the explosion. Carthew inquired about this. Entwistle consideredthat the risk was comparatively slight.
"The cloths hung across the approaches to the main road should keep itaway," he said. "It's a heavy gas, and don't move about much, like. Weshall be able to tell by the lamps, anyway."
"Then what had we better do?" said Carthew briskly. "Dig?"
One of the men--Atkinson--lifted his head from his hands.
"Ah were saaved by t' Salvationists once," he said hoarsely. "Ah couldput up a prayer."
"I think we will try the effect of a little spade-work first," saidCarthew. "_Laborare est orare_, just now!" he added to himself.
* * * * *
A few hours later they re-assembled. They had tapped, sounded, hewed,and shovelled at every potential avenue of escape, but to no purpose.The intake and main road appeared to be blocked from end to end. Sixmen were mewed up with no food, a very little water, twenty-fourhours' light, and a limited quantity of oxygen; and they had no meansof knowing how near or how far away help might be.
All they were certain of was that on the other side of the barrierwhich shut them in men were working furiously to reach them in time,and that up above women were praying to God that He would deliverthem.