Jack brought three safety-lamps from the lamp-room, and took his place
in the cage with the two volunteers.
"Lower away," he shouted, "but go very slowly when we get near the
bottom, and look out for our signal."
It was but three minutes from the moment that the cage began to sink to
that when it touched the bottom of the shaft, but it seemed an age to
those in it. They knew that at any moment a second explosion might
come, and that they might be driven far up into the air above the top of
the shaft, mere scorched fragments of flesh.
Not a word was spoken during the descent, and there was a general
exclamation of "Thank God!" when they felt the cage touch the bottom.
Jack, as an official of the mine, at once took the lead.
"Now," he said, "let us push straight up the main road."
Just as they stepped out, they came across the bodies of two men, and
stooped over them with their lamps.
"Both dead," Jack said; "we can do nothing for them."
A little way on were some waggons thrown together in a heap, and broken
up; the body of a pony; and that of the lad, his driver. Then they came
to the first door--a door no longer, not a fragment of it remaining. In
the door-boy's niche the lad lay in a heap. They bent over him.
"He is alive," Jack said. "Will you two carry him to the cage? I will
look round and see if there is any one else about here; beyond, this
way, there is no hope. Make haste! Look how the gas is catching inside
the lamps, the place is full of fire-damp."
The men took up the lad, and turned to go to the bottom of the shaft.
Jack went a few yards down a cross road, and then followed them. He was
in the act of turning into the next road to glance at that also, when he
felt a rush of air.
"Down on your faces!" he shouted, and, springing a couple of paces
farther up the cross-road, threw himself on his face.
There was a mighty roar--a thundering sound, as of an express train--a
blinding light, and a scorching heat. Jack felt himself lifted from the
ground by the force of the blast, and dashed down again.
Then he knew it was over, and staggered to his feet. The force of the
explosion had passed along the main road, and so up the shaft, and he
owed his life to the fact that he had been in the side road and off its
course. He returned into the main road, but near the bottom of the
shaft he was brought to a standstill.
The roof had fallen, and the passage was blocked with fragments of rock
and broken waggons. He knew that the bottom of the shaft must be partly
filled up, that his comrades were killed, and that there was no hope of
escape in that direction. For a moment he paused to consider; then,
turning up the side road to the left, he ran at full speed from the
shaft.
He knew that the danger now was not so much from the fire-damp--the
explosive gas--as from the even more dreaded choke-damp, which surely
follows after an explosion.
Many more miners are killed by this choke-damp, as they hasten to the
bottom of the shaft after an explosion, than by the fire itself.
Choke-damp, which is carbonic acid gas, is heavier than ordinary air,
and thus the lowest parts of a colliery become first filled with it, as
they would with water.
In all coal-mines there is a slight, sometimes a considerable,
inclination, or "dip" as it is called, of the otherwise flat bed of
coal. The shaft is almost always sunk at the lower end of the mine, as
by this means the whole pit naturally drains to the well at the bottom
of the shaft. From there it is pumped up by the engine above. The
loaded waggons, too, are run down from the workings to the bottom of the
shaft with comparative ease.