DIES IRÆ
One gloomy day in late autumn Ivan went from the forge to his mine,
and upon the way his thoughts ran in a sad groove. "What a curious
world we live in; everything goes wrong--at least, for most people.
Bread is not for the wise man, nor success for the strong; it was so
in the days of Solomon. One bad year follows the other, for even
nature acts like a step-mother to men. The poor are hungry and beg for
bread, and when they have eaten they forget from whom they received
nourishment. All the great proprietors go to their graves without
doing, either for their country or their neighbor, anything worth
mentioning; all the burden of the present and the future seems to fall
upon the less numerous and more exhausted class. The patriots are all
hollow; they weep when they are in their cups; they show their fists,
but no one dares to strike a blow. All manly strength is gone; there
is not a man worth the name in the whole country. And the women--they
are all the same, from the high-born dame to the peasant girl--false
and heartless. Even in the bowels of the earth it is no better. For
the last two days there has been choke-damp in the mine; the escape of
gas has been so great that the men cannot work; it is as likely as not
that there will be an explosion while I am in the pit."
You see, Ivan's thoughts were as black as the landscape, and suited
to its gloom. His road from the forge to the mine led him past the
workmen's houses, and as he passed one of these a miner came stumbling
out of the door. The house was a wine-shop. The miner had his back
towards Ivan, who did not recognize him, but he noticed that the man
had great difficulty in walking straight.
"I wonder who it is that has got drunk so early in the day?" thought
Ivan, and hastened after the man to find out who he was. When he got
up with him he saw, to his surprise, that it was Peter Saffran. This
struck Ivan unpleasantly; he recalled how, on the day when Evila had
eloped, Saffran had sworn never again to touch brandy; he knew also
that Peter had kept this oath. He recollected also, but imperfectly,
that when he said that he wouldn't drink any more he had let fall some
threat. Well, it didn't much matter; if he got drunk, that was his
affair. But why did he come to Ivan's village to get drunk? Why didn't
he go to the tavern in his own colony?
Ivan hailed the man. "Good-morning, Peter."
Peter did not return the greeting; he stared like a stupid dog who
doesn't know his own master. He looked at Ivan with a wild eye, he
pressed his lips together, and his nostrils extended. He drew his cap
down over his eyes.
Ivan asked him, "Has the choke-damp got into your pit?"
No answer from Peter. He shoved his cap from off his forehead, and,
opening his mouth to its full extent, bent his face to that of Ivan,
and let his hot, spirit-laden breath blow over him. Then, without
saying a syllable, he turned away, and set off running in the
direction of the company's mine.
The heated breath of the man, with the sickening smell of bad brandy,
sent a shudder through Ivan's frame. He stood still, staring after the
runaway, who, when he had got a certain distance, stopped and looked
back. Ivan could see his face distinctly. He looked like a madman; his
lips hung apart, like those of a mad dog; his white teeth gleamed in
contrast to his red gums. His whole appearance was so strange and
desperate that Ivan laid hold of the revolver in his pocket. For one
moment the thought passed through his mind that he would be doing a
good work in freeing the world of such a creature, but on second
thoughts he let him go unharmed, and continued his way to the mine to
look after the ventilators.
In the vault the proportion between the hydrogen and the air was three
to seven. Ivan forbade any work to be done in the mine, or any pumping
out of the dangerous gas. He employed his men in the open air,
removing the coal that was required, and only allowed those to remain
below who had to look after the air-pumps.
He remained the whole day on the spot, controlling everything and
keeping a close watch. Towards evening he left the mine and returned
to his house. Everything was apparently safe. It was a nasty, foggy,
gloomy evening; the state of the atmosphere reacted upon the mind and
body alike. When nature is out of sorts, man suffers; when the sky is
overcast, he, too, is gloomy. And when the earth is sick, when worms
and mould destroy the fruit, when the harvest is ruined by blight, and
the cattle are decimated by pestilence--above all, when the noxious
vapors from the coal-mines rise to the surface and poison the very
air--then men sicken and die.
All through the day Ivan had felt cold shudders running over his whole
body. His limbs were contracted by that unpleasant feeling called
goose-skin, and when he got home he shivered, although his room was
warm. He was restless, uneasy. He could occupy himself with nothing;
everything palled upon him. The worst symptom of all, he could not
even work.
When a man refuses food or drink, when he does not care for the
company of a pretty woman, when his club wearies him, these are
unhealthy signs; but when he turns away from work, and finds no longer
any interest in his usual occupation, then it is time to send for the
physician.
Ivan's head throbbed, yet he could not sleep, and to stay awake was
torture. He lay down, and with a resolute effort closed his eyes. A
panorama of past, present, and future kept dancing before him. Peter
Saffran's hot, stinking breath seemed to breathe again in his
nostrils, and the very horror brought back to his memory the man's
long-forgotten words:
"No more during my life shall I drink brandy--_only once_; and when I
do, and when you smell from my breath that I have been drinking, or
see me coming out of the public-house, then take my advice and stop
safe at home, for on that day no man shall know in what manner he
shall die."
Who cares for the threat of a drunken man? Let me sleep. No, the
drunken man would not allow Ivan to sleep; his breath was there.
Faugh! it made him sick. His blear-eyed, pallid face was there bending
over the bed, looking into Ivan's eyes with his blood-shot eyes; his
open mouth and shut teeth came quite close to the sleeper, who, vainly
beating his arms in the air, tried to drive away this horrid
nightmare.
Ah, what is that sound? A crack like the crack of doom awoke Ivan; not
alone awoke him, but threw him violently out of bed and on to the
floor, where he lay stunned.
His first consecutive thoughts were, "The choke-damp has exploded! My
mine is in ruins!" This was enough to get him on his legs and to send
him out in the darkness--darkness, raven-black darkness, the stillness
only broken by a whistling sound in the air. Ivan stood for a moment
wondering. He felt the earth swaying under his feet; he heard a
subterranean grumbling. There! the pitch-dark night was suddenly
illumined; a bright pillar of fire rose out of the Bondavara Company's
mine. At the same moment another fearful explosion was heard, worse
than the last. The windows of the house were shattered in a thousand
pieces, the chimneys, the roofs fell in. The pressure of the air
forced Ivan back and threw him against the door of his own house. By
the strong light of the demoniacal pillar he could see his own workmen
all on their knees with a horrified expression upon their ghastly
faces. Women and children were gathered at the doors of the houses,
but the terror was so great that every one was speechless.
The entire valley glowed like the crater of a volcano. It vomited
forth a rain of fire-sparks, as in Gomorrah. The flames reached almost
to the clouds, and heaven sent forth clap upon clap of thunder, the
like of which in the most terrible thunder-storm had never been heard.
Two minutes later the flames were extinguished. The whole valley was
again enveloped in pitch-darkness, only over the company's mine
floated a filmy white cloud.
"The neighboring mine has exploded!" shrieked Ivan. "Help! help!" He
never remembered that it was his enemy's mine; he only thought that
there, in the bowels of the earth, a fearful, indescribably fearful,
calamity had happened. "Help! help!" he cried, and ran to the
alarm-bell, at which he pulled with all the strength of his body.
His own men came rushing in hot haste, all repeating to one another,
as if it were something new, "The neighboring mine has exploded!"
Then followed a significant pause. The men carrying lanterns
surrounded Ivan, and looked at him questioningly, waiting for him to
speak.
How had he guessed their thoughts?
Those who under God's free heavens drew their breath were bound to go
to the rescue of those who lay buried underground, and who perchance
still lived. Here it was no case of friend or foe. They were human
beings; that was enough.
"We must get the ventilators, the well-buckets to work!" called Ivan.
"Let each man bring a thick cloth to tie over his mouth. Bring
crow-bars, cords, ladders, india-rubber tubes, hose-pipes. The women
only are to remain behind. Forward, my men!"
He threw on an old coat, seized a strong iron bar, which he carried on
his shoulder, placed himself at the head of his men, and led the way
to the company's mine.
It was not easy to force an entrance into the works. The proprietors
had set up all manner of barricades in order to prevent Ivan's carts
from making any use of the new road. On the gates there were boards
with "No trespassing. No one to pass this way without a written
order."
No one now minded these orders. If a door or a gate impeded their
progress, Ivan thrust his iron rod through it and soon made a passage,
through which his men rushed pell-mell. The miners did not pause to
harness any horses to the machines. They harnessed themselves, while
others shoved behind, and drove them on over sticks and stones down to
the mouth of the pit. Like an army of lunatics the party of rescuers
rushed on through the night, making their way as best they could by
means of the lanterns fastened to their waistbands. Soon, however, the
darkness was again illumined. The forge nearest to the pit, and
consequently the most exposed to the fiery heat, blew up suddenly, and
the flames from the heating-oven filled the air with a red glow. The
miners avoided, however, the direction in which it burned, as it would
be impossible to predicate the direction which the molten metal would
take.
When they reached the pit an awful spectacle presented itself. The
ventilation-ovens which were placed over the shaft-mouth were gone.
The bricks and tiles were scattered in a thousand directions all over
the fields. The large windlass of cast-iron lay on the ground at a
considerable distance from its former position, and of the conical,
bell-shaped buildings hardly a stone was left. Only one wall was still
standing; the iron fasteners hung from its side. The northern entrance
to the pit had fallen in. The handsome stone gates lay in ruins.
Stones, beams, iron bars, coals were all mixed up together in
heterogeneous confusion, as if a volcano had vomited them out.
The air was filled with the cries of weeping women. Hundreds upon
hundreds of women and children, probably widows and orphans, held up
their hands to heaven and wept. Under their feet their husbands, their
fathers, brothers, lovers lay buried, and no one could help them.
More from recklessness than from actual courage some men had already
attempted to go down into the pit. They had been at once stunned by
the pressure of the gas, and now their comrades, at the risk of their
own lives, were trying to drag them out by cords and slings. Already
one lay on the grass, while the women stood round him wringing their
hands.
Ivan now began to make his plans. "In the first place," he said, "no
one is to venture near the pit. Let all wait until I return."
He took his way towards the house of the directors. He forgot that he
had sworn never to hold any communication with Rauné. In any case, he
was not to be found. In the next town there was high festival. The
directors of the new railway had given a banquet in honor of the
completion of the tunnel. Rauné was there. Ivan, however, met the
second engineer coming out of his house. He was a cool, phlegmatic
man, and consoled himself with the trite reflection that these things
happened everywhere. "The gates must be rebuilt," he said. "The pit
roads must again be re-made, and probably we shall have to sink
another shaft. It will cost a lot of money. _Voila tout!_"
"How many men are below?" asked Ivan.
"Probably about a hundred and fifty."
"Only! And what is to be done for them?"
"It will be a hard job to get them out, for they were at work at the
passage which we were making between the north pit and the east to
improve the ventilation."
"Therefore there is no other entrance to the pit but the one which has
fallen in?"
"No; and the eastern shaft is also in ruins. The flames came from
there; you must have seen them."
"Yes; and I couldn't understand how it was that the second explosion
followed the first after an interval of a few minutes."
"That is easily explained. The communicating wall was already so thin
that the explosion in the north pit blew it into fragments; the gas in
the east pit undoubtedly was not kindled by the flames, for they had
already gone out, but by the strong pressure of the air, which was
heated to fever-heat by the accumulation of coal, and which,
therefore, exploded through the shaft. So it is when you put sand into
the barrel of a gun; the powder bursts the barrel before it throws out
the sand."
It was plain that the engineer took a very cold-blooded view of the
whole affair, and that the design for the new stone gate was a matter
of more interest to him than the hundred and fifty lives which were in
jeopardy. Ivan saw there was little assistance to be got from him.
"Before we can attempt the rescue of the men who are buried in the
pit," he said, "we must pump the gas out of the opening of the cavern.
Where is your air-pump?"
"Up there," returned the engineer, pointing to the sky; "that is to
say, if it hasn't fallen down."
"You have no portable ventilator?"
"We never contemplated the necessity of having one."
"I have brought mine, if we can adjust it."
"I would gladly know how that can be done. If the ventilator has a
copper tube, it would be impossible to introduce it through all the
zigzag of the rubbish and general wreck; if it has an india-rubber
pipe it would be too weak, and wouldn't stand being shoved forward."
"Some one must carry it into the pit."
"Some one?" repeated the engineer, with an air of amazement. "Look
yonder; they are drawing up the third man who was foolish enough to
venture down there; he is dead, like the other two!"
"No, none of them are dead; they will soon recover consciousness; they
are stifled by the foul air."
"All the same, I can hardly believe that you will find a man mad
enough to be the first to carry a tube fifty steps through all the
wreckage."
"I have already found the man. I shall do it."
The engineer shrugged his shoulders, but he made no effort to dissuade
him.
Ivan went back to the men, who meantime had been getting ready for
work. He called the oldest miner on one side.
"Paul," he said, "some one must carry the india-rubber tube of the
ventilator into the mouth of the pit."
"Good. Let us draw lots."
"We shall do nothing of the kind. I shall go. You are all husbands and
fathers with families. You have wives and children to provide for. I
have no one. How long can a man hold out in that foul air without
drawing his breath?"
"A hundred beats of his pulse; no longer."
"Good. Fetch me the pipe. Bind a cord round my body and hold the other
end. When you see that I no longer carry the pipe, draw the cord
slowly back, but take care to draw slowly, in case that I should have
fainted and that a sudden pull might strangle me."
Ivan loosened the woollen band from his waist, steeped it in a vessel
of vinegar, and wrung it out and wrapped his face in it, so that his
nose and mouth were covered. He then bound the cord firmly round his
body, took the foremost end of the india-rubber pipe upon his
shoulder, and began to make his way through the rubbish and _débris_
at the pit's mouth.
The old miner called after him, in a broken voice: "Count the seconds.
Fifty for going, fifty for coming back."
Ivan vanished behind the ruins. The miners took off their caps and
folded their hands. The old man held the fingers of his right hand on
the wrist of his left and counted his pulse. He had already counted
over fifty and the other end of the pipe had not moved. It had passed
sixty and was near seventy when suddenly it was pulled forward. Ivan
had penetrated into the deadly atmosphere. The old miner wiped the
perspiration from his brow. He counted eighty, ninety, a hundred
seconds. They shall never see him again. Then the pipe remained
steady.
Now they began to draw the rope. It was slack, and not tightened by
any burden. Ivan was, therefore, so far safe; he was still walking,
for the rope continued slack. Suddenly it got stiffer. Be careful now.
The cord again slackened; the old miner counted a hundred and sixty
seconds. Suddenly Ivan was seen coming out of the pit's mouth,
supporting himself upon the fallen stones of the archway; but his
strength failed, and as the men rushed to his assistance he tottered
and fell into their arms. His face was like that of a dying man.
They rubbed him with vinegar, and the fresh air soon revived him. He
sat up, and told them he was all right, but--
"The air down there is something awful," he said. "What is happening
to those poor creatures who are buried below?"
It never occurred to him to remember that those poor creatures were
the same ungrateful men who had deserted him, who had taken service
with the men who had sworn to ruin him, who had formed a conspiracy
against him, who were ready to murder him, who had sent a deputation
to the enemies of their native land. Here they lay, buried in the
depths of mother-earth, which thus revenged upon them their treachery.
Ivan had forgotten their sin against him and their country, and his
only thought was to save them if there was yet time.
Now that the ventilator had been set in motion, the work of rescue
might begin; but all the same it was a terribly hard fight.
Ivan divided his band of men into two divisions. Each man was only to
stay an hour at the dangerous work of clearing away the rubbish. Every
one must have his face covered by a cloth steeped in vinegar. So soon
as he began to feel faint he was to be carried away by his comrades.
When the day began to break the wreck of the fallen entrance had been
moved to one side, but in the mouth of the pit the sun could not
penetrate. The vault of slate-clay had fallen altogether to one side,
so that Ivan, when he had carried the pipe into the pit, had found
there was scarcely room to allow it to wind through the chasms. In the
spot where he had placed the mouth of the pipe the vault was
altogether destroyed.
It was an undertaking almost superhuman. What had been the work of
weeks had to be done in so many days. And yet it must be done.
In their work of clearing away the rubbish Ivan's men had very little
assistance from the company's men for this reason: the explosion had
taken place at the time when the miners were relieved. When men are
working in collieries it is usual to relieve them four times. It was
the time of the midnight relief when the accident happened. One party
of the miners had already gone down the shaft; they were undoubtedly
suffocated. The other party were on their way out, and were killed at
once by the explosion. There was another party who had only reached
the resting-stage, where neither the flames nor the fragments could
touch them. These men were buried alive. It therefore resulted that of
all the company's miners only from twenty to thirty were available.
The men who worked the forge were forbidden by the director to give
any help in the work of rescue. In all the ovens the metal was in a
liquid state; if it was not attended to it would turn into rammers.
The workmen give the name of _ram_, or _rammer_, to a solid mass of
iron, which, in consequence of faulty melting, cannot be removed from
the oven, and it and the oven have to be thrown away as useless
lumber. The forge-work was urgently needed. The railway greaves had to
be finished by a certain date, or a large fine would have to be paid.
Ivan therefore had to set his men almost unaided to the task of
clearing the pit. The women helped with all their strength. Their
husbands, the bread-winners, were underneath the ruins.
What a terrible undertaking! In consequence of the falling in of the
arches the roof had, at a distance of six feet, to be supported on
plugs, and a sort of street made through the ruins, where at every
corner a new enemy waited for the intrepid pioneers.
After the explosion the pit had been overflowed by water. The
water-pipes had to be set to work, and where these were not sufficient
the men were obliged to empty out the black slime in buckets, standing
for hours in stinking mud, breathing foul air, threatened with death
or mutilation from the constant falling of stones and wreckage.
Undaunted by these obstacles, the men made their way step by step into
the bowels of the earth.
In the afternoon Rauné arrived. In the middle of a convivial festival
he had heard the news. He was raging. He came down the shaft and
cursed all the dead men.
"The scoundrels! They have cost the company a million of money! What
does it matter if they are all killed? Serves them right! Why should
any of them be saved? Stuff and nonsense! Let them suffocate, the
drunken dogs!"
The workers made him no answer. First, because they could not take up
their time talking, and, secondly, because every man's mouth was
covered. The clearing of a mine is very silent work.
But in the midst of his curses Rauné encountered one workman, who
placed himself in front of him and confronted him with a steady look.
This man was covered with mud and coal like the other laborers, his
face was tied up with a cloth, and only the eyes were visible; they,
too, were blackened with coal-dust, but Rauné knew by their expression
that it was Ivan. No one who had ever looked into his eyes could
forget him.
Rauné turned away without another word, and, in company with his
engineer, left the pit. He interfered no further with Ivan's work.
Four days and four nights the men never ceased working. They triumphed
over every obstacle and cut a pathway through every difficulty. During
those four days Ivan never for one hour left the mine. He ate his
meals sitting on a stone, and snatched an hour's sleep in some corner.
On the fourth day the workmen came upon one of the missing men. A
man--no, but a mass, flattened against the wall, of flesh and bones,
which had once been a man.
Some feet farther on there lay another body on the ground, but the
head was nowhere to be seen. They tried to get him on one of the
wheelbarrows which were for drawing coal, but he was all in fragments;
splinters and shreds of that human body were sticking to everything.
Then they came upon the charred, blackened corpses of the men who had
been burned. They were not recognizable.
Farther on there was a group of fifteen men crushed by a huge weight
of slate stratum. This could not be moved, so they were left. It was
more necessary to look after the living than the dead. Everywhere they
found corpses; still the number of the missing was not complete.
The miners employed by the company told Ivan that if any of the men
were still living they would be found at the resting-stage, where they
left their coats before they began to work and fetched them again as
they went up. In the passages, however, there had been such a total
upset that the oldest hand could not find his way. In many places the
explosion had torn down the partition wall, in other places the
entrance was stopped up with rubbish, or the roof taken off some of
the passages which led into the inner vaults. It was all in such utter
confusion that no one could find out where the large vault lay.
At last it struck Ivan that underneath a mass of coal and slack he
heard a faint, whimpering sound. He said to the men, "Dig this spot."
At once they set to work to clear away the rubbish, and as they
cleared the company's men began to recognize different landmarks,
which convinced them they were at the right place.
"Yes, here is the door which leads to the resting-stage." The pressure
of the air had shut the door close, the side walls had fallen in, and
so these, who had been safe from the conflagration, had been buried
alive.
The whimpering cry for help, like that of an infant's wail, was heard
now more distinctly. The door, too, was plainly visible, and as it was
swung off its hinges Ivan took a light and peered into the dark cavern
below.
No cry of joy reached him; the rescued men had not the strength to
make a sound. They were about a hundred in all. They lay there
still, speechless. Life had almost ebbed away, but not altogether.
They had suffered the tortures of hunger and thirst, they had been
suffocated by the foul air, broken-hearted, despairing. And now
these human skeletons, when they saw the light, could hardly raise a
finger to show they were alive. A heart-rending whimper, in which
there was no human tone, rose from the hundred parched throats. When
the explosion came they had been thrown upon their faces. Their
lamps had gone out, and it would have been madness to relight them.
They had remained in total darkness. After a little the danger of
their situation increased. Soon they began to feel that the water
was gradually--slowly at first--filling the space which served them
as a refuge and a grave, and this space or vault was, they knew, a
fathom deeper than the pit. They tried--for at first they were not
so weak--to get hold of some boards and plugs that lay about, and
out of these they made a sort of stage or platform, upon which they
all clambered, and there waited for death--the death that might come
either through hunger, foul air, or drowning. When their rescuers
opened the door the water had reached the threshold and touched the
bottom of the wooden stage.
Ivan directed that the poor creatures should be carried carefully and
silently out of their living grave. They did not press forward, for
they could not stand. Each man lay where he was, and waited until his
turn came. The foretaste of death made every one tranquil. Some of
them could not at first open their eyes, but all were alive, and Ivan
could not help thinking how wonderful is the strength of human nature.
He had saved them all, but the work was not yet finished. How if,
beyond the breach of which the engineer had spoken, there were more
men waiting for deliverance? One thing they must ascertain
positively--if the explosion had finished the work begun by the
engineer's men, and had carried away the wall which had divided one
pit from the other. If this were so, it would considerably lighten the
work of those who had come to seek for the victims. At the opening of
the breach-tunnel lay a man's body; he was such a charred, burned mass
that he was unrecognizable. The dead man held in his hand his
safety-lamp. _It was open._
So this was the accursed one who had done the hellish deed, and it was
human folly that had caused this demoniacal explosion.
The corpse was not recognizable, the clothing was burned to ashes. In
his girdle, however, they found a small steel casket, and in this
casket a gold watch; upon the enamelled back was the portrait of a
lovely woman.
When the watch was brought to Ivan he recognized the portrait. It was
Eveline. With the watch there was also a bank-note for a hundred
gulden. It was half burned. Upon the back was written:
"A year ago to-day I received this money; to-day I pay it back." What
a fearful repayment!
* * * * *
Ivan was now able to grasp the connection between the words and the
acts of this terrible man, whose recollection of his own act of eating
human flesh had prompted him to an unexampled and most horrid
massacre. His threats after Evila's elopement, his entering into the
company's service, the last occasion upon which he had drunk brandy,
and the breath he had blown into Ivan's face. All was now explained.
This was part of the drama. This man had a character such as
Antichrist might be possessed of. His soul and body were full of
concealed demons, who prompted him to take revenge of those who had
offended him, ridiculed him, stolen from him, scorned him, treated him
as a fool, insulted him with money, tempted him with luxuries, and
taken advantage of his simplicity to pull him by the nose.
All of them should fall. He would pull the foundation-stone from under
their feet, even if he dug his own grave in so doing. They should fall
from their high estate--the banker, the pastor, the capitalist, the
minister, and the actress.
In hell the demons could teach Peter nothing.
Ivan stood before the unsightly corpse deep in thought. In his heart
there raged a wild conflict of passions. He also had been robbed,
oppressed by the wealth of his enemies, his heart wounded by a hundred
poisoned arrows, and this by the same men upon whom the revengeful
hate of Peter Saffran had fallen. Ivan had come to their help. He had
saved the lives and the property of his foes--at least, what they
called their property; the monstrous treasure which lies in the very
bowels of the earth does not, in truth, belong altogether to any man,
but to all men; it is the treasure-trove of the state, destined to
serve and minister to all ages.
And yet a great dread, an unconquerable fear, possessed Ivan. He dared
not mention his fear to any one, for if he were to share his
suspicion with any one of the workmen, who up to this had followed him
obediently through every peril, they would, without another word, have
turned their backs and fled for their lives.
The wire cylinder of Saffran's safety-lamp was filled to the very top
with a red flame. This was a warning that the atmosphere was still
charged with one-third of hydrogen gas, and that only two-thirds were
of fresh air.
But there is an even greater danger to be feared than the pit-gas. Its
fearful spirit had been laid; the victims lay silent upon the
wheelbarrows. Yet another and a worse spirit lurks in ambush--a foe
who goes about with closed eyes, whose presence is awful in its
consequences: it is the carbon from the coals.
When the men had made the breach through the tunnel, they found, just
as the engineer had said, that the explosion had burst through the
partition wall, and that the _débris_ had only to be removed, and the
passage between the east and the north pits would be established. Not
one of the workmen could remain long at this work. After some moments
each one returned coughing, and complaining that in that place his
safety-lamp would not burn.
In the pits the flame of the lamp filled the whole cylinder; this was
not reassuring. But in the neighborhood of the ruins it would hardly
burn; this was a far more serious sign.
The last miner who returned said that as he removed a large lump of
coal such a terrible stench had penetrated through his mouth-protector
that he had almost fainted. The smell was like that of putrid
vegetable matter.
The old hands knew what this putrid stench signified. Paul suggested
to Ivan that he should go and examine whence it came. Let him cover
his mouth very carefully, and hasten back as soon as possible.
Ivan took his iron rod and his lamp, and went. Seizing hold of the rod
with both hands, he struck it with all his strength into a mass of
coal, upon which the lump rolled with a great noise into the adjoining
space. He then fastened his lamp to the hook of his rod and pushed it
into the hollow. The lamp went out at once, and as he looked from the
darkness into the hollow, to his horror he saw in the next vault a red
glow which lighted up the space. He knew at once there was no time to
lose. He never paused to withdraw his rod, but rushed back to the men.
"The east pit is burning!" he cried.
No one answered, but the men seized hold of Ivan, and bore him with
them out of the pit into the open air. Behind them followed the
horrible stench--not merely that of foul air such as accompanies "bad
weather," often with fatal effect; this was the more insidious carbon,
that which kindles pit-fires, baffles the ingenuity of man, respects
neither the brave nor the scientific, and which, when once it has
begun, can never be turned back. There is nothing to do but to run for
the bare life.
In a few minutes the pit was empty.
As they issued into the light of day they were surrounded by countless
women and children, weeping and screaming in their joy at being
reunited to their lost ones.
The engineer was also there. Ivan went straight to him. Taking the
cloth from his mouth, he said:
"Do you know, sir, what is going on down there in your mine? Complete,
utter ruin! The east pit is burning; it must have been alight some
days, for the whole pit is red-hot. I shall never forget the sight.
Now let me tell you what this means. It is not the hand of human
wickedness, neither is it the avenging hand of God; it is altogether
caused by the negligence of the overseer. You, who are a great
scientist, know as well as I do that collieries take fire when sulphur
gets mixed with coal-dust and is allowed to lie in a heap. It is
always hot down there, and when the stuff is fanned by the air it
lights of itself. Your pit is full of this dangerous burning mist. And
now both your pit and my mine are finished. The colliery fire can
never be extinguished. You have heard of the burning mountain of
Dutweeler? A hundred and twenty years ago that coal-mine took fire; it
is still burning. Here we shall experience another such tragedy.
Good-morning."
The engineer only shrugged his shoulders; it was nothing to him.
Ivan shook the dust of the God-forsaken colony off his feet. He and
his men returned to his own side of the mountain.
Meantime what had happened to his own mine? He had been absent four
days and four nights, and had never given it a thought.