BURIED ALIVE.--THE THREE DEADLY PERILS.
Seven miners were buried under the ruins of the shaft; but although
masses of coal and clay fell into the hall from the side nearest to
the explosions, and blocked up some of the passages, nobody 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 assassin. 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 God
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 passage 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 débris; 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 circumstance that here an assassin 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 assassin and his
victims was sometimes at odds with the fellowship 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 God 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
passage 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 God for it," said Hope. "You little know what it would be to pass
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?"
Hope looked at his watch and said, "There was a good deal of water in
the tank when you blew up the mine; there must be about thirty tons
in it now."
"Well, then," said Burnley, "you that knows everything, help me brust the
wall o' tank; it's thin enow."
Hope reflected.
"If we let in the whole body of water," said he, "it would shatter us to
pieces, and crush us against the wall of our prison and drown us before
it ran away through the obstructed passages into the new workings.
Fortunately, we have no pickaxe, and can not be tempted to
self-slaughter."
This silenced Burnley for the day, and he remained sullenly apart; still
the idea never left his mind. The next day, toward evening, he asked Hope
to light his own lamp, and come and look at the wall of the tank.
"Not without me," whispered Grace. "I see him cast looks of hatred at
you."
They went together, and Burnley bade Hope observe that the water was
trickling through in places, a drop at a time; it could not penetrate the
coaly veins, nor the streaks of clay, but it oozed through the porous
strata, certain strips of blackish earth in particular, and it trickled
down, a drop at a time. Hope looked at this feature with anxiety, for he
was a man of science, and knew by the fate of banked reservoirs, great
and small, the strange explosive power of a little water driven through
strata by a great body pressing behind it.
"You'll see, it will brust itsen," said Burnley, exultantly, "and the
sooner the better for me; for I'll never get alive out on t' mine; yow
blowed me to the men, and they'll break every bone in my skin."
Hope did not answer this directly.
"There, don't go to meet trouble, my man," said he. "Give me the
can, Grace. Now, Burnley, hold this can, and catch every drop till
it is full."
"Why, it will take hauf a day to fill it," objected Burnley, "and it will
be hauf mud when all is done."
"I'll filter it," said Hope. "You do as you are bid."
He darted to a part of the mine where he had seen a piece of charred
timber; he dragged it in with him, and asked Grace for a
pocket-handkerchief; she gave him a clean cambric one. He took his
pocket-knife and soon scraped off a little heap of charcoal; and then he
sewed the handkerchief into a bag--for the handy man always carried a
needle and thread.
Slowly, slowly the muddy water trickled into the little can, and then the
bag being placed over the larger can, slowly, slowly the muddy water
trickled through Hope's filter, and dropped clear and drinkable into the
larger can. In that dead life of theirs, with no incidents but torments
and terrors, the hours passed swiftly in this experiment. Hope sat upon a
great lump of coal, his daughter kneeled in front of him, gazing at him
with love, confidence, reverence; and Burnley kneeled in front of him
too, but at a greater distance, with wolfish eyes full of thirst and
nothing else.
At last the little can was two-thirds full of clear water. Hope took the
large iron spoon which he had found along with the tea, and gave a full
spoonful to his daughter. "My child," said he, "let it trickle very
slowly over your tongue and down your throat; it is the throat and the
adjacent organs which suffer most from thirst." He then took a spoonful
himself, not to drink after an assassin. He then gave a spoonful to
Burnley with the same instructions, and rose from his seat and gave the
can to Grace, and said, "The rest of this pittance must not be touched
for six hours at least."
Burnley, instead of complying with the wise advice given him, tossed the
liquid down his throat with a gesture, and then dashing down the spoon,
said, "I'll have the rest on't if I die for it," and made a furious rush
at Grace Hope.
She screamed faintly, and Hope met him full in that incautious rush, and
felled him like a log with a single blow. Burnley lay there with his
heels tapping the ground for a little while, then he got on his hands
and knees, and crawled away to the farthest corner of his own place, and
sat brooding.
That night when Grace retired to rest Hope lay down at her feet, with his
hammer in his hand, and when one slept the other watched, for they feared
an attack. Toward the morning of the next day Grace's quick senses heard
a mysterious noise in Burnley's quarter; she woke her father. Directly he
went to the place, and he found Burnley at work on his knees tearing away
with his hands and nails at the ruins of the shaft. Apparently fury
supplied the place of strength, for he had raised quite a large heap
behind him, and he had laid bare the feet up to the knees of a dead
miner. Hope reported this in a hushed voice to Grace, and said, solemnly,
"Poor wretch, he's going mad, I fear."
"Oh no," said Grace, "that would be too horrible. Whatever should we do?"
"Keep him to his own side, that is all," said Hope.
"But," objected Grace in dismay, "if he is mad, he won't listen, and he
will come here and attack me."
"If he does," said Hope, simply, "I must kill him, that's all."
Burnley, however, in point of fact, kept more and more aloof for many
hours; he never left his work till he laid bare the whole body of that
miner, and found a pickaxe in his dead hand. This he hid, and reserved it
for deadly uses; he was not clear in his mind whether to brain Hope with
it, and so be revenged on him for having shut him up in that mine, or
whether to peck a hole in the tank and destroy all three by a quicker
death than thirst or starvation. The savage had another and more horrible
reason for keeping out of sight; maddened by thirst he had recourse to
that last extremity better men have been driven to; he made a cut with
his clasp-knife in the breast of the dead miner, and tried to swallow
jellied blood.
This horrible relief never lasts long, and the penalty follows in a few
hours; but in the meantime the savage obtained relief, and even vigor,
from this ghastly source, and seeing Hope and his daughter lying
comparatively weak and exhausted, he came and sat down at a little
distance in front of them: that was partly done to divert Hope from
examining his shambles and his unnatural work.
"Maister," said he, "how long have we been here?"
"Six days and more," said Hope.
"Six days," said Grace, faintly, for her powers were now quite
exhausted--"and no signs of help, no hope of rescue."
"Do not say so, Grace. Rescue in time is certain, and, therefore, while
we live there is hope."
"Ay," said Burnley, "for you tew but not for me. Yow telt the men that I
fired t' mine, and if one of those men gets free they'll all tear me limb
from jacket. Why should I leave one grave to walk into another? But for
yow I should have been away six days agone."
"Man," said Hope, "can not you see that my hand was but the instrument?
it was the hand of Heaven that kept you back. Cease to blame your
victims, and begin to see things as they are and to repent. Even if you
escape, could the white faces ever fade from your sight, or the dying
shrieks ever leave your ear, of the brave men you so foully murdered?
Repent, monster, repent!"
Burnley was not touched, but he was scared by Hope's solemnity, and went
to his own corner muttering, and as he crouched there there came over his
dull brain what in due course follows the horrible meal he had made--a
feverish frenzy.
In the meantime Grace, who had been lying half insensible, raised her
head slowly and said, in a low voice, "Water, water!"
"Oh, my girl," said Hope, in despair, "I'll go and get enough to moisten
your lips; but the last scrap of food has gone, the last drop of oil is
burning away, and in an hour we shall be in darkness and despair."
"No, no, father," said Grace, "not while there is water there,
beautiful water."
"But you can not drink _that_ unfiltered; it is foul, it is poisonous."
"Not that, papa," said Grace, "far beyond that--look! See that clear
river sparkling in the sunlight; how bright and beautiful it shines! Look
at the waving trees upon the other side, the green meadows and the bright
blue sky, and there--there--there--are the great white swans. No, no. I
forgot, they are not swans, they are ships sailing to the bright land you
told me of, where there is no suffering and no sorrow."
Then Hope, to his horror, began to see that this must be the very
hallucination of which he had read, a sweet illusion of green fields and
crystal water, which often precedes actual death by thirst and
starvation. He trembled, he prayed secretly to God to spare her, and not
to kill his new-found child, his darling, in his arms.
By-and-by Grace spoke again, but this time her senses were clear; "How
dark it's grown!" she said. "Ah, we are back again in that awful mine."
Then, with the patient fortitude of a woman when once she thinks the will
of the Almighty is declared, she laid her hand upon his shoulder, and she
said, soothingly, "Dear father, bow to Heaven's will;" then she held up
both her feeble arms to him--"kiss me, father--FOR WE ARE TO DIE!"
With these firm and patient words, she laid her sweet head upon the
ground, and hoped and feared no more.
But the man could not bow like the woman. He kissed her as she bade him,
and laid her gently down; but after that he sprang wildly to his feet in
a frenzy, and raged aloud, as his daughter could no longer hear him.
"No, no," he cried, "this thing can not be, they have had seven days to
get to us.
"Ah, but there are mountains and rocks of earth and coal piled up between
us. We are buried alive in the bowels of the earth.
"Well, and shouldn't I have blasted a hundred rocks, and picked through
mountains, to save a hundred lives, or to save one such life as this, no
matter whose child she was?
"Ah! you poor scum, you came to me whenever you wanted me, and you never
came in vain. But now that I want you, you smoke your pipes, and walk
calmly over this living tomb I lie in.
"Well, call yourselves men, and let your friends perish; I am a man, and
I can die."
Then he threw himself wildly on his knees over his insensible daughter.
"But my child! Oh God! look down upon my child! Do, pray, see the horror
of it. The horror and the hellish injustice! She has but just found her
father. She is just beginning life; it's not her time to die! Why, you
know, she only came here to save her father. Heaven's blessing is the
right of pious children; it's promised in God's Word. They are to live
long upon earth, not to be cut off like criminals."
Then he rose wildly, and raged about the place, flinging his arms on
high, so that even Burnley, though his own reason was shaken, cowered
away from the fury of a stronger mind.
"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 ingratitude? IS GOD 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 God! thank God! thank God!"
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 God 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 masses 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 class.
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 mass 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 assassin 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.