INSIDE THE TUNNEL.
And, indeed, if brain-waves had been in question at all, they
ought, without a doubt, to have informed Guy Waring that at the
very moment when he was going out to send off his telegram, his
brother Cyril was sitting disconsolate, with dark blue lips and
swollen eyelids, on the footboard of the railway carriage in the
Lavington tunnel. Cyril was worn out with digging by this time,
for he had done his best once more to clear away the sand towards
the front of the train in the vague hope that he might succeed in
letting in a little more air to their narrow prison through the
chinks and interstices of the fallen sandstone. Besides, a man in
an emergency must do something, if only to justify his claim to
manliness--especially when a lady is looking on at his efforts.
So Cyril Waring had toiled and moiled in that deadly atmosphere for
some hours in vain, and now sat, wearied out and faint from foul
vapours, by Elma's side on the damp, cold footboard. By this time
the air had almost failed them. They gasped for breath, their heads
swam vaguely. A terrible weight seemed to oppress their bosoms.
Even the lamps in the carriages flickered low and burned blue.
The atmosphere of the tunnel, loaded from the very beginning with
sulphurous smoke, was now all but exhausted. Death stared them in
the face without hope of respite--a ghastly, slow death by gradual
stifling.
"You MUST take a little water," Elma murmured, pouring out the
last few drops for him into the tin cup--for Cyril had brought a
small bottleful that morning for his painting, as well as a packet
of sandwiches for lunch. "You're dreadfully tired. I can see your
lips are parched and dry with digging."
She was deathly pale herself, and her own eyes were livid, for by
this time she had fairly given up all hope of rescue; and, besides,
the air in the tunnel was so foul and stupefying, she could hardly
speak; indeed, her tongue clung to her palate. But she poured out
the last few drops into the cup for Cyril and held them up imploringly,
with a gesture of supplication. These two were no strangers to one
another now. They had begun to know each other well in those twelve
long hours of deadly peril shared in common.
Cyril waved the cup aside with a firm air of dissent.
"No, no," he said, faintly, "you must drink it yourself. Your need
is greater far than mine."
Elma tried to put it away in turn, but Cyril would not allow her.
So she moistened her mouth with those scanty last drops, and turned
towards him gratefully.
"There's no hope left now," she said, in a very resigned voice.
"We must make up our minds to die where we stand. But I thank you,
oh, I thank you so much, so earnestly."
Cyril, for his part, could hardly find breath to speak.
"Thank you," he gasped out, in one last despairing effort. "Things
look very black; but while there's life there's hope. They may even
still, perhaps, come up with us."
As he spoke, a sound broke unexpectedly on the silence of their
prison. A dull thud seemed to make itself faintly heard from beyond
the thick wall of sand that cut them off from the daylight. Cyril
stared with surprise. It was a noise like a pick-axe. Stooping
hastily down, he laid his ear against the rail beside the shattered
carriage.
"They're digging!" he cried earnestly, finding words in his joy.
"They're digging to reach us! I can hear them! I can hear them!"
Elma glanced up at him with a certain tinge of half-incredulous
surprise.
"Yes, they're digging, of course," she said quickly. "I knew they'd
dig for us, naturally, as soon as they missed us. But how far off
are they yet? That's the real question. Will they reach us in time?
Are they near or distant?"
Cyril knelt down on the ground as before, in an agony of suspense,
and struck the rail three times distinctly with his walking-stick.
Then he put his ear to it and listened, and waited. In less than
half a minute three answering knocks rang, dim but unmistakable,
along the buried rail. He could even feel the vibration on the iron
with his face.
"They hear us! They hear us!" he cried once more, in a tremor of
excitement. "I don't think they're far off. They're coming rapidly
towards us."
At the words Elma rose from her seat, still paler than ever, but
strangely resolute, and took the stick from his hand with a gesture
of despair. She was almost stifled. But she raised it with method.
Knocking the rail twice, she bent down her head and listened in
turn. Once more two answering knocks rang sharp along the connecting
line of metal. Elma shook her head ominously.
"No, no, they're a very long way off still," she murmured, in
a faltering tone. "I can hear it quite well. They can never reach
us!"
She seated herself on a fragment of the broken carriage, and buried
her face in her hands once more in silence. Her heart was full.
Her head was very heavy. She gasped and struggled. Then a sudden
intuition seized her, after her kind. If the rail could carry the
sound of a tap, surely it might carry the human voice as well.
Inspired with the idea, she rose again and leant forward.
A second time she knocked two quick little taps, ringing sharp on
the rail, as if to bespeak attention; then, putting her mouth close
to the metals, she shouted aloud along them with all the voice that
was left her--
"Hallo, there, do you hear? Come soon, come fast. We're alive,
but choking!"
Quick as lightning an answer rang back as if by magic, along the
conducting line of the rail--a strange unexpected answer.
"Break the pipe of the wires," it said, and then subsided instantly.
Cyril, who was leaning down at her side at the moment with his ear
to the rail, couldn't make out one word of it. But Elma's sharp
senses, now quickened by the crisis, were acute as an Oriental's
and keen as a beagle's.
"Break the pipe of the wires," they say, she exclaimed, starting
back and pondering. "What on earth can they mean by that? What
on earth can they be driving at? 'Break the pipe of the wires.' I
don't understand them."
Hardly had she spoken, when another sharp tap resounded still more
clearly along the rail at her feet. She bent down her head once
more, and laid her eager ear beside it in terrible suspense. A rough
man's voice--a navvy's, no doubt, or a fireman's--came speeding
along the metal; and it said in thick accents--
"Do you hear what I say? If you want to breathe freer, break the
pipe of the wires, and you'll get fresh air from outside right
through it."
Cyril this time had caught the words, and jumped up with a sudden
air of profound conviction. It was very dark, and the lamps were
going out, but he took his fusee-box from his pocket and struck a
light hastily. Sure enough, on the left-hand side of the tunnel,
half buried in rubbish, an earthenware pipe ran along by the edge
near the wall of the archway. Cyril raised his foot and brought
his heel down upon it sharply with all the strength and force he
had still left in him. The pipe broke short, and Cyril saw within
it a number of telegraph wires for the railway service. The tube
communicated directly with the air outside. They were saved! They
were saved! Air would come through the pipe! He saw it all now! He
dimly understood it!
At the self-same moment, another sound of breaking was heard more
distinctly at the opposite end, some thirty or forty feet off through
the tunnel. Then a voice rang far clearer, as if issuing from the
tube, in short, sharp sentences--
"We'll pump you in air. How many of you are there? Are you all
alive? Is any one injured?"
Cyril leant down and shouted back in reply--
"We're two. Both alive. Not hurt. But sick and half dead with
stifling. Send us air as soon as ever you can. And if possible pass
us a bottle of water."
Some minutes elapsed--three long, slow minutes of it--intense
anxiety. Elma, now broken down with terror and want of oxygen,
fell half fainting forward towards the shattered tube. Cyril held
her up in his supporting arms, and watched the pipe eagerly. It
seemed an age; but, after a time, he became conscious of a gust of
air blowing cold on his face. The keen freshness revived him.
He looked about him and drew a deep breath. Cool air was streaming
in through the broken place. Quick as thought, he laid Elma's mouth
as close as he could lay it to the reviving current. Her eyes were
closed. After a painful interval, she opened them languidly. Cyril
chafed her hands with his, but his chafing seemed to produce very
little effect. She lay motionless now with her eyelids half shut,
and the whites of her eyes alone showing through them. The close,
foul air of that damp and confined spot had worked its worst, and
had almost asphyxiated her. Cyril began to fear the slight relief
had arrived five minutes too late. And it must still in all
probability be some hours at least before they could be actually
disentombed from that living vault or restored to the open air of
heaven.
As he bent over her and held his breath in speechless suspense,
the voice called out again more loudly than ever--
"Look out for the ball in the tube. We're sending you water!"
Cyril watched the pipe closely and struck another light. In a minute,
a big glass marble came rattling through, with a string attached
to it.
"Pull the string!" the voice cried; and Cyril pulled with a will.
Now and again, the object attached to it struck against some
projecting ledge or angle where the pipes overlapped. But at last,
with a little humouring, it came through in safety. At the end was
a large india-rubber bottle, full of fresh water, and a flask of
brandy. The young man seized them both with delight and avidity,
and bathed Elma's temples over and over again with the refreshing
spirit. Then he poured a little into the cup, and filling it up
with water, held it to her lips with all a woman's tenderness. Elma
gulped the draught down unconsciously, and opened her eyes at once.
For a moment she stared about her with a wild stare of surprise.
Then, of a sudden, she recollected where she was, and why, and
seizing Cyril's hand, pressed it long and eagerly.
"If only we can hold out for three hours more," she cried, with
fresh hope returning, "I'm sure they'll reach us; I'm sure they'll
reach us!"