“We can’t go down now,” he said, looking at his watch. “They’re just going to blast, and it will take an hour afterward for the smoke to clear. We’ll go up and have our dinner, and come down again this afternoon to finish up, eh?”
Lunch, up on the earth’s surface, with sunshine and first grade air. The words were as welcome to Mr. Wade as though an archangel had spoken them.
Young Carrington, too, shared his feeling; shared, too, though unknowingly, Mr. Wade’s calculation that his legs would just about carry him to the cage.
Richards, with an inward grin, assured himself that those two, at least, would attempt no afternoon expedition.
This farce of investigation would soon be ended. It would be quite safe to urge them to come down again. They had had quite enough. He looked forward with amused anticipation to making the suggestion after lunch.
Trevanion hesitated about declaring an intention to remain without the others through the noon hour. No, he would see young Carrington safely out of it first; then —
They were almost at the cage now.
Richards was showing them the bell at the side of the shaft, the signal to the engineer to hoist the cage.
“All the men but one get in,” he explained. “He touches the bell and races across to get in the cage. The engineer allows him so many seconds to make it. No, you can’t stop it after it starts.”
Mr. Wade, who had arrived at that stage when he recked not how the cage went up, as long as it went, continued an unlistening way to that haven.
There was a detonation from the development level.
“Blast,” said Richards, to young Carrington’s look. “They’re in rather dangerous ground, and so we have them leave it until just before the noon hour, in case – ”
A man shot up from the ladder-way. Another. And another. The ladder-hole spouted them out like a volcano.
They ran toward the cage panic-stricken, sweeping Mr. Wade into it before them. With an instant comprehension of the disaster that placed them all in a common peril, Richards turned swiftly to the others.
“Get in!” he shouted. “They’ve struck water!”
He caught Hastings by the arm, and rammed his way through the press like a great machine.
“You – fools! There’s plenty of time!” he railed at his men.
Trevanion, guarding young Carrington with his right arm, thrust his mighty bulk through the struggling mass just behind Richards.
They were almost at the cage door when a terrorized Finn fought his way past them, striking out blindly at everything in reach.
One elbow thrust sent young Carrington spinning from Trevanion’s protecting arm to the ground, and the next instant the Finn dropped his full weight between Richards and Hastings, and leaped past them into the cage.
He shouted triumphantly to his fellows. It was jargon to Mr. Wade. But Richards knew, and raged, and the other miners knew, and rejoiced, that he had given the signal to hoist. Trevanion was lifting young Carrington in his arms.
Richards stepped into the cage, with an oath.
“Come!” he said, fiercely, to Hastings, jamming a few inches of space free in the cage with his bulk. “Room for one. You haven’t a second to lose!” he shouted.
Hastings put his hands in his pockets, coolly.
“I stay with my guests,” he said. And with his first word, the cage started upward.
As he turned toward the others, Trevanion, one arm round young Carrington, caught hold of his sleeve.
“We maun run for it!” he shouted.
For out of the great black hole beneath them rose the water, spreading across the bottom of the shaft.
From above, and suddenly faint, they could hear Mr. Wade calling that they must stop, that they must go back for his nephew, and his voice was the voice of a very old man. Trevanion instinctively led them running back into the drift. Young Carrington wrenched himself free. “I’m all right,” he said. “Took the breath out of me for a minute. I won’t hinder.”
Back of them the water followed silently, gaining gradually up the grade of the drift.
“Not time to make that first rise – the one we came down,” Trevanion said, as they sped along. “Ought to be another – here it is!”
He swerved into a black air shaft, but swept them back into the drift the next instant.
“No ladder. Stripped!” he said, laconically, and on they hurried again.
The water was a thin encroaching line thirty feet back now. Now the rise in the level hid it from sight.
And finally another rise. Stripped.
And on again.
Young Carrington was getting tired. Even peril was losing its spur. He stumbled a little.
Trevanion caught him round the waist, lifting him along with a strong gentleness; looking at him with curiously wondering eyes, but eyes that never lost their look of fealty.
“Why are the ladders gone?” young Carrington asked, and he kept his voice resolutely free from fear.
“Economy,” said Trevanion, briefly. “Wanted to use them somewhere else. We’ll find one after a bit.” Which might or might not be so.
“And if we don’t?” said Hastings, swinging alongside.
“They’ll send the cage to the level above, and your men will be hallooing all over the place for us,” Trevanion told him. He thought with a certain grim humor that Richards would not make any wild exertion to save him. Hastings’ presence was their best hope, if the ladders failed.
“If it should take them a long time to find us?” It was young Carrington now.
“Water may stop altogether,” Trevanion stated. “Depends on the size of the vug. Anyway, it rises slower the more ground it covers. We’ll have time enough.” But no one could tell that.
Disappointment. Hope. Then the end of the drift stared them in the face – rock and dirt as a final blast had left it.
But “Here’s our raise,” said Trevanion, bluffly, turning off.
And the raise was ladderless: a vertical opening, whose hard rock walls were too slippery for even a Cornishman to climb. Trapped!
They looked at the place where the ladder should have been, as though it must, perforce, appear. Young Carrington ran a finger rapidly round inside his collar, as though it had grown suddenly tight. The air seemed close. Then he pulled himself together sharply. Say what you will, blood will tell.
“And now what?” he asked Trevanion, cheerfully.
Hastings’ eyes were looking the same question.
“Wait,” said Trevanion, stoically.
To wait, inactive: it is the real test of courage.
With any kind of activity, hope plays an obligato; but when there is no struggle to be made, fears tries a tremolo first on one heartstring and then another.
“You should have gone with the others,” said young Carrington to Hastings, reproachfully.
“Never!” said Hastings, decidedly. “There’s that drop of comfort in the whole thing, anyway.
“How do you suppose I should feel,” he flashed, “if I were safe on the surface, and you were here? I should feel as though I had decoyed you into it.” He turned to Trevanion. “Can’t the pumps get the water under control?” he demanded.
“If you had enough of ’em,” said Trevanion. “That’s another place where Richards economized. The Star’ll pump it out for you after a while.”
“Richards will have his day of reckoning if I get out