A PERILOUS PASSAGE.
For many minutes Ralph stood, like one in a dream, holding the slip of
paper tightly in his grasp. Then there came upon him, not suddenly,
but very gently and sweetly, as the morning sunlight breaks into a
western valley, the broad assurance that he was Robert Burnham's son.
Here was the declaration of that fact over the man's own signature.
That was enough; there was no need for him to question the writer's
sources of knowledge. Robert Burnham had been his ideal of truth and
honor; he would have believed his lightest word against the solemn
asseveration of thousands.
The flimsy lie coined by Rhyming Joe no longer had place in his mind.
He cared nothing now for the weakness of Sharpman, for the cunning of
Craft, for the verdict of the jury, for the judgment of the court; he
_knew_, at last, that he was Robert Burnham's son, and no power on
earth could have shaken that belief by the breadth of a single hair.
The scene on the descending carriage the day his father died came back
into his mind. He thought how the man had grasped his hands, crying,
in a voice deep and earnest with conviction:--
"Ralph! Ralph! I have found you!"
He had not understood it then; he knew now what it meant.
He raised the paper to the level of his eyes, and read, again and
again, the convincing words:--
"Do not allow any one to persuade you that this boy is not our
son. I _know_ he is."
Then Ralph felt again that honest pride in his blood and in his
name, and that high ambition to be worthy of his parentage, that had
inspired him in the days gone by. Again he looked forward into the
bright future, to the large fulfilment of all his hopes and desires,
to learning, culture, influence, the power to do good; above all, to
the sweetness of a life with his own mother, in the home where he had
spent one beautiful day.
He had drawn himself to his full height; every muscle was tense, his
head was erect with proud knowledge, high hope flashed from his eyes,
gladness dwelt in every feature of his face.
Then, suddenly, the light went out from his countenance, and the old
look of pain came back there.
His face had changed with his changing thought as it did that day
in the court-room at Wilkesbarre. The fact of his imprisonment had
returned into his mind, and for the moment it overcame him. He sat
down on a jutting rock to consider it. Of what use was it to be Robert
Burnham's son, with two hundred feet of solid rock between him and the
outside world, and the only passage through it blocked with burned and
broken timbers?
For a time despondency darkened his mind and despair sat heavily upon
him. He even wished that the joy of this new knowledge had not come to
him. It made the depth of his present misfortune seem so much greater.
But, after a while, he took heart again; courage came back to him; the
belief that he would be finally saved grew stronger in his mind; hope
burned up brightly in his breast, and the pride of parentage within
him filled him with ambition to do what lay in his power to accomplish
his own deliverance. It was little he could do, indeed, save to wait
with patience and in hope until outside help should come, but this
little, he resolved, should be done with a will, as befitted his birth
and position.
He folded the precious bit of paper he had found and fastened it in
his waistcoat pocket so that he should not lose it as Robert Burnham
had lost it; then he took up his lamp and went back through the
half-walled entrance, down the chamber and along the side-heading to
the air-way door where Jasper had been left.
There was a small can of oil sitting just inside the door-way. It
was the joint property of Ralph and the door-boy. It was fortunate,
he thought, that he had selected that place for it, as he was now in
great need of it. He filled his lamp, from which the oil had become
nearly exhausted, and then passed out through the door.
The mule was still there and uttered a hoarse sound of welcome when he
saw the boy.
"I found somethin' up there, Jasper," said Ralph, as he sat down
on the bench and began to pat the beast's neck again, "somethin'
wonderful; I wish I could tell you so you could understand it; it's
too bad you can't, Jasper; I know you'd be glad."
The mule seemed to recognize the pleasantness of the lad's voice and
to enjoy it, and for a long time Ralph sat there petting him and
talking to him.
Finally, he became aware that the air about him was growing to be very
bad. It made him feel sick and dizzy, and caused his heart to beat
rapidly.
He knew that he must go farther in. He thought, however, to make an
attempt to get out toward the shaft first. It might be that it had
grown clearer out there, it might be that the rescuers were already
working down toward him. He started rapidly down the heading, but
before he had gone half-way to the head of the plane, the smoke and
the foul air were so dense and deadly that he had to stop and to crawl
away from it on his hands and knees. He was greatly exhausted when he
reached the air-way door again, and he sat on the bench for a long
time to rest and to recover.
But he knew that it was dangerous to remain there now, and, taking the
can of oil with him, he started slowly up the heading. He did not know
how soon he should get back here, and when the oil in his lamp should
give out again he desired to be able to renew it.
The mule was following closely behind him. It was a great comfort,
too, to have a living being with him for company. He might have been
shut up here alone, and that would have been infinitely worse.
At the point where the branch leading to the new chambers left the
main heading, Ralph turned in, following his accustomed route.
It seemed to him that he ought to go to places with which he was
familiar.
He trudged along through the half-mile of gang-way that he had always
found so lonely when he was at work, stopping now and then to rest.
For, although he walked very slowly, he grew tired very easily. He
felt that he was not getting into a purer atmosphere either. The air
around him seemed to lack strength and vitality; and when, at last, he
reached the tier of chambers that it had been his duty to supply with
cars, he was suffering from dizziness, from shortness of breath, and
from rapid beating of the heart.
At the foot of Conway's chamber Ralph found a seat. He was very weak
and tired and his whole frame was in a tremor.
He began to recall all that he had heard and read about people being
suffocated in the mines; all the stories that had ever been told to
him about miners being shut in by accident and poisoned with foul air,
or rescued at the point of death. He knew that his own situation was
a critical one. He knew that, with the shaft crowded full of wreckage
and giving no passage to the air, the entire mine would eventually
become filled with poisonous gases. He knew that his present physical
condition was due to the foulness of the atmosphere he was breathing.
He felt that the situation was becoming rapidly more alarming. The
only question now was as to how long this vitiated air would support
life. Still, his courage did not give way. He had strong hope that he
would yet be rescued, and he struggled to hold fast to his hope.
The flame of his lamp burned round and dim, so dim that he could
scarcely see across the heading.
The mule came up to him and put out his nose to touch the boy's hand.
"I guess we may as well stay here. Jasper," he said. "This is the
furthest place away from the shaft, an' if we can't stan' it here we
can't stan' it nowhere."
The beast seemed to understand him, for he lay down then, with his
head resting on Ralph's knee. They remained for a long time in that
position, and Ralph listened anxiously for some sound from the
direction of the shaft. He began to think finally that it was foolish
to expect help as yet. No human being could get through the gas and
smoke to him. The mine would first need to be ventilated. But he felt
that the air was growing constantly more foul and heavy. His head was
aching, he labored greatly in breathing, and he seemed to be confused
and sleepy. He arose and tried to walk a little to keep awake. He knew
that sleep was dangerous. But he was too tired to walk and he soon
came back and sat down again by the mule.
"I'm a-tryin', Jasper," he said, "I'm a-tryin' my best to hold out;
but I'm afraid it ain't a-goin' to do much good; I can't see much
chance"--
He stopped suddenly. A thought had struck him. He seized his lamp
and oil-can and pushed ahead across the air-way and up into Conway's
chamber.
The mule arose with much difficulty and staggered weakly after him. A
new hope had arisen in the boy's heart, an inspiration toward life had
put strength into his limbs.
At the breast of the chamber he set down his lamp and can, climbed up
on to the shelf of coal, and began tearing out the slate and rubbish
from the little opening in the wall that Conway had that day shown to
him. If he could once get through into the old mine he knew that he
should find pure air and--life.
The opening was too small to admit his body, but that was nothing;
there were tools here, and he still had strength enough to work. He
dragged the drill up to the face but it was too heavy for him to
handle, and the stroke he was able to make with it was wholly without
effect. His work with the clumsy sledge was still less useful, and
before he had struck the third blow the instrument fell from his
nerveless hands.
He was exhausted by the effort and lay down on the bed of coal to
rest, gasping for breath.
He thought if only the air current would come from the other mine
into this what a blessing it would be; but, alas! the draft was the
other way. The poisoned air was being drawn swiftly into the old
mine, making a whistling noise as it crossed the sharp edges of
the aperture.
Ralph knew that very soon the strong current would bring in smoke and
fouler air, and he rose to make still another effort. He went down
and brought up the pick. It was worn and light and he could handle it
more easily. He began picking away at the edges of coal to enlarge the
opening. But the labor soon exhausted him, and he sat down with his
back against the aperture to intercept the passage of air while he
recovered his breath.
He was soon at work again. The hope of escape put energy into his weak
muscles.
Once, a block as large as his two hands broke away and fell down on
the other side. That was a great help. But he had to stop and rest
again. Indeed, after that he had very frequently to stop and rest.
The space was widening steadily, but very, very slowly.
After a time he threw down the pick and passed his head through the
opening, but it was not yet large enough to receive his body.
The air that was now coming up the chamber was very bad, and it was
blue with smoke, besides.
The boy bent to his task with renewed energy; but every blow exhausted
him, and he had to wait before striking another. He was chipping the
coal away, though, piece by piece, inch by inch.
By and by, by a stroke of rare good-fortune, a blow that drew the pick
from the lad's weak hands and sent it rattling down upon the other
side, loosened a large block at the top of the opening, and it fell
with a crash.
Now he could get through, and it would be none too soon either. He
dropped his oil-can down on the other side, then his lamp, and then,
after a single moment's rest, he crawled into the aperture, and
tumbled heavily to the floor of the old mine.
It was not a great fall; he fell from a height of only a few feet, but
in his exhausted condition it stunned him, and he lay for some minutes
in a state of unconsciousness.
The air was better in here, he was below the line of the poisoned
current, and he soon revived, sat up, picked up his lamp, and looked
around him.
He was evidently in a worked-out chamber. Over his head in the
side-wall was the opening through which he had fallen, and he knew
that the first thing to be done was to close it up and prevent the
entrance of any more foul air.
There was plenty of slate and of coal and of dirt near by, but he
could not reach up so high and work easily, and he had first to build
a platform against the wall, on which to stand.
It took a long time to do this, but when it was completed he stood up
on it to put the first stone in place.
On the other side of the opening he heard a hoarse sound of distress,
then a scrambling noise, and then Jasper's nose was pushed through
against his hand. The mule had stood patiently and watched Ralph while
he was at work, but when the boy disappeared he had become frightened,
and had clambered up on the shelf of coal at the face to try to follow
him. He was down on his knees now, with his head wedged into the
aperture, drawing in his breath with long, forced gasps, looking
piteously into the boy's face.
"Poor Jasper!" said Ralph, "poor fellow! I didn't think of you. I'd
get you in here too if I could."
He looked around him, as if contemplating the possibility of such a
scheme; but he knew that it could not be accomplished.
"I can't do it, Jasper," he said, rubbing the animal's face as he
spoke. "I can't do it. Don't you see the hole ain't big enough? an' I
couldn't never make it big enough for you, never."
But the look in Jasper's eyes was very beseeching, and he tried to
push his head in so that he might lay his nose against Ralph's breast.
The boy put his arms about the beast's neck.
"I can't do it, Jasper," he repeated, sobbing. "Don't you see I can't?
I wisht I could, oh, I wisht I could!"
The animal drew his head back. His position was uncomfortable, and it
choked him to stretch his neck out that way.
Ralph knew that he must proceed with the building of his wall. One
after another he laid up the pieces of slate and coal, chinking in
the crevices with dirt, keeping his head as much as possible out of
the foul current, stopping often to rest, talking affectionately to
Jasper, and trying, in a childish way, to console him.
At last his work was nearly completed, but the gruff sounds of
distress from the frightened mule had ceased. Ralph held his lamp up
out of the current, so that the light would fall through the little
opening, and looked in.
Jasper lay there on his side, his head resting on the coal bottom, a
long, convulsive respiration at intervals the only movement of his
body. He was unconscious, and dying. The boy drew back with tears in
his eyes and with sorrow at his heart. The beast had been his friend
and companion, not only in his daily toil, but here also, in the
loneliness and peril of the poisoned mine. For the time being, he
forgot his own misfortunes in his sympathy for Jasper. He put his face
once more to the opening.
"Good-by, Jasper!" he said, "good-by, old fellow! I couldn't help it,
you know, an'--an' it won't hurt you any more--good-by!"
He drew back his head, put the few remaining stones in place, chinked
the crevices with dirt and culm, and then, trembling and faint,
he fell to the floor of the old mine, and lay there, panting and
exhausted, for a long time in silent thought.
But it was not of himself he was thinking; it was of poor old Jasper,
dying on the other side of the black wall, deserted, barred out,
alone.
Finally it occurred to him that he should go to some other place in
the mine. The poisonous gases must still be entering through the
crevices of his imperfectly built and rudely plastered wall, and it
would be wise for him to get farther away. His oil had nearly burned
out again, and he refilled his lamp from the can. Then he arose and
went down the chamber.
It was a very long chamber. When he reached the foot of it he found
the entrances into the heading walled up, and he turned and went along
the air-way for a little distance, and then sat down to rest.
For the first time he noticed that he had cut his hands badly, on the
sharp pieces of coal he had been handling, and he felt that there was
a bruise on his side, doubtless made when he fell through the opening.
Hitherto he had not had a clear idea as to the course he should pursue
when he should have obtained entrance into the old mine. His principal
object had been to get into pure air.
Now, however, he began to consider the matter of his escape. It was
obvious that two methods were open to him. He could either try to make
his way out alone to the old slope near the Dunmore road, or he could
remain in the vicinity of Conway's chamber till help should reach him
from the Burnham mine.
But it might be many hours before assistance would come. The shaft
would have first to be cleared out, and that he knew would be no easy
matter. After that the mine would need to be ventilated before men
could make their way through it. All this could not be done in a day,
indeed it might take many days, and when they should finally come in
to search for him, they would not find him in the Burnham mine; he
would not be there.
If he could discover the way to the old slope, and the path should be
unobstructed, he would be in the open air within half an hour. In the
open air! The very thought of such a possibility decided the question
for him. And when he should reach the surface he would go straight
to Mrs. Burnham, straight to his mother, and place in her hands the
letter he had found. She would be glad to read it; she would be
very, very glad to know that Ralph was her son. Sitting there in the
darkness and the desolation he could almost see her look of great
delight, he could almost feel her kisses on his lips as she gave him
tender greeting. Oh! it would be beautiful, so beautiful!
But, then, there was Uncle Billy. He had come near to forgetting him.
He would go first to Uncle Billy, that would be better, and then they
would go together to his mother's house and would both enjoy her words
of welcome.
But if he was going he must be about it. It would not do to sit there
all night. All night? Ralph wondered what time it had come to be.
Whether hours or days had passed since his imprisonment he could
hardly tell.
He picked up his lamp and can and started on. At no great distance he
found an old door-way opening into the heading. He passed through it
and began to trudge along the narrow, winding passage. He had often to
stop and rest, he felt so very weak. A long time he walked, slowly,
unsteadily, but without much pain. Then, suddenly, he came to the end
of the heading. The black, solid wall faced him before he was hardly
aware of it. He had taken the wrong direction when he entered the
gallery, that was all. He had followed the heading in instead of out.
His journey had not been without its use, however, for it settled
definitely the course he ought to take to reach the slope, and that,
he thought, was a matter of no little importance.
He sat down for a few minutes to rest, and then started on his return.
It seemed to be taking so much more time to get back that he feared he
had passed the door-way by which he had entered the heading. But he
came to it at last and stopped there.
He began to feel hungry. He wondered why he had not thought to look
for some one's dinner pail, before he came over into the old mine. He
knew that his own still had fragments of food in it; he wished that
he had them now. But wishing was of no use, the only thing for him
to do was to push ahead toward the surface. When he should reach his
mother's house his craving would be satisfied with all that could
tempt the palate.
He started on again. The course of the heading was far from straight,
and his progress was very slow.
At last he came to a place where there had been a fall. They had
robbed the pillars till they had become too weak to support the roof,
and it had tumbled in.
Ralph turned back a little, crossed the air-way and went up into the
chambers, thinking to get around the area of the fall. He went a long
way up before he found an unblocked opening. Then, striking across
through the entrances, he came out again, suddenly, to a heading. He
thought it must have curved very rapidly to the right that he should
find it so soon, if it were the one he had been on before. But he
followed it as best he could, stopping very often to catch a few
moments of rest, finding even his light oil-can a heavy burden in his
hands, trying constantly to give strength to his heart and his limbs
by thoughts of the fond greeting that awaited him when once he should
escape from the gloomy passages of the mine.
The heading grew to be very devious. It wound here and there, with
entrances on both sides, it crossed chambers and turned corners till
the boy became so bewildered that he gave up trying to trace it. He
pushed on, however, through the openings that seemed most likely
to lead outward, looking for pathways and trackways, hungering,
thirsting, faint in both body and spirit, till he reached a solid wall
at the side of a long, broad chamber, and there he stopped to consider
which way to turn. He struck some object at his feet. It was a pick.
He looked up at the wall in front of him, and he saw in it the
filled-up entrance through which he had made his way from the Burnham
mine.
It came upon him like a blow, and he sank to the floor in sudden
despair.
This was worse than anything that had happened to him since the time
when he ran back to the shaft to find the carriage gone and its place
filled with firebrands. His journey had been such a mournful waste of
time, of energy, and of hopeful anticipation.
But, after a little, he began to think that it was not quite so bad as
it might have been after all. He had his lamp and his oil-can, and
he was in a place where the air was fit to breathe. That was better,
certainly, than to be lying on the other side of the wall with poor
old Jasper. He forced new courage into his heart, he whipped his
flagging spirits into fresh activity, and resolved to try once more to
find a passage to the outside world.
But he needed rest; that was apparent. He thought that if he could lie
down and be quiet and contented for fifteen or twenty minutes he would
gain strength and vigor enough to sustain him through a long journey.
He arose and moved up the chamber a little way, out of the current of
poisoned air that still sifted in through the crevices of his rudely
built wall.
Here he lay down on a place soft with culm, to take his contemplated
rest, and, before he was aware of it, sleep had descended on him,
overpowered him, and bound him fast. But it was a gracious victor. It
put away his sufferings from him; it allayed his hunger and assuaged
his thirst, it hid his loneliness and dispelled his fear, and it
brought sweet peace for a little time to his troubled mind. He was
alone and in peril, and far from the pure air and the bright sunlight
of the upper world; but the angel of sleep touched his eyelids just as
gently in the darkness of this dreadful place as though he had been
lying on beds of fragrant flowers, with white clouds or peaceful stars
above him to look upon his slumber.