Before he had gone far he became aware that the noise came from the old
gallery that he had marked down as being the most likely to lead nearest
to the workings of the ancient pit, and, after carefully peering down
it, he held his lamp above his head to gaze in farther. But he could
see nothing; and suddenly the noise ceased.
With a quick motion Philip thrust the tall, thin lamp inside his flannel
mine-coat and buttoned it up, for the thought suddenly struck him that
if anyone was at work there he would be sure to have a light.
It turned out as he expected, for there, upon a ledge of rock about
fifty yards ahead, stood a Davy-lamp, shedding its soft dull rays
around, so that some fell upon a wall of coal, which glistened in the
light as if it had been newly cut.
"It is very strange," thought Philip. "Why should anyone be at work
here? It is dangerous, too. The old mine full of water must be close
behind."
"Well," he said, "Davy-lamps are not at all ghost-like things, so let us
see what it all means;" and going cautiously forward, with his own lamp
hidden, he crept near enough to see that there was a heavy iron bar
lying upon the flooring of the wide chamber, for the gallery had been
opened out here, and beside it a heap of newly-chipped coal, the result
of an effort evidently being made to bore through into the ancient pit.
"Why, it is treachery!" exclaimed Philip mentally. "Someone is trying
to flood--Ah!"
A tremendous blow fell upon his head, and he dropped to the ground,
motionless, stunned as it were in body; but with every faculty of his
mind quickened, and, with his eyes half-closed, he saw a dark figure
stride across him, a short iron bar in his hand, pick up the lamp and
hold it down.
"Yes, I ar'n't made no mistake, Muster Hex'on. I said I'd mak' my mark
on yo, and yo've got it this time. How came he here?"
The man stood in a listening attitude for a few moments, and then,
apparently satisfied, raised his bar to strike again.
"That first un seems to hev done it," he said with a coarse laugh.
"Spying, that's what he was about. Now I'll give them a job."
He set down the lamp once more upon the ledge, picked up the big bar,
and began to drive it heavily in the hole he had made in the coal, the
great bar going in quite three feet at each stroke, while Philip lay
watching him, paralysed still in body, but seeing all that took place.
At the end of half-a-dozen strokes the bar seemed to go through farther,
and as the great miner drew it back a little stream of dirty water came
trickling through, and Parks stood watching it intently.
"I knowed it wur theer," he muttered; "but it'll never make no head if I
don't open it a bit more."
He hesitated for a moment, and then, raising the bar once more, drove it
through with all his force.
The effect was very different to what he had anticipated, for he must
have dislodged a goodly-sized piece of coal on the other side, and as he
snatched back the bar there was a fierce rush of water in a spurt as big
as a man's arm, whose flash Philip Hexton just saw, and then the lamp
was extinguished.
The noise was so great--such a fierce, hissing roar--that the cry
uttered by Ebenezer Parks was half drowned; while, in less time than it
takes to tell it, the young deputy felt a sudden shock as a rush of cold
water bathed his face and head, acting so magically that he rose
quickly, and, with the water rising above his ankles, began to feel his
way along the stony wall, as fast as he could, in the direction in which
he had come.
The confusion from the blow was rapidly passing away, cleared as it was
by a great horror--that of being overtaken and drowned in the flooding
mine, and, sometimes striking himself heavily, but always making
progress, he waded on.
Still it was slow work, for the water seemed to hinder him, and he had
reached a curve where the gallery took a fresh direction when there was
a fiercer roar behind, one which betokened that the water was forcing
for itself a greater way; and so it proved, for in a very few moments
the rushing icy stream was above his knees.
It was very horrible there in the darkness, listening to the gurgling
rush of the water, ever increasing in violence; but forgetting self for
the moment, Philip wondered where his assailant could be, and then,
hearing nothing, he began to think of the men in the pit, and whether
they would have time to escape.
All depended, he knew, upon whether the wall of coal between the two
mines stood firm where Ebenezer's bar had not struck, and hoping this
would be so, but despairing of his own life now, he waded on, the water
being far above his knees.
"I shall never find my way in the dark," he groaned, with a chilly
feeling of horror creeping over him, and placing his hands above his
throbbing breast as if to check the beating of his heart, he uttered a
cry of joy, for they came in contact with the lamp.
It was, of course, extinct as he tore it from his breast, but he had
matches in his pocket far above where the water had yet reached.
It was a risk, but he must chance the gas. The air caused by the
rushing water might have swept it away, and trembling so that he could
hardly perform the office, he drew key and matches from his pockets,
nearly, in his agitation, dropping the lamp in the rushing stream that
swept against his legs.
He saved it, though, and struck a match, which went out directly, and
another and another shared its fate. The next burned brightly, though,
and no explosion following, he lit the lamp, trimmed the wick, dropped
the match in the water, where it went out with a faint hiss; and then,
closing the gauze, he held the feeble Davy above his head.
It was a star of hope, though, to him; and so it must have been to
Ebenezer Parks; for as the rays shone out, there came from far behind a
wild, despairing yell, and then, as Philip turned towards it, there was
a fierce hissing rush, the stream doubled in volume, he was swept
against the wall, and it was only by hurrying with it that he was able
to keep his feet.
Twice over he essayed to turn, but the effort was vain. It was
impossible to battle with it. All he could do was to hold his lamp up
so as to guide him from striking against the wall, and go with the
rushing stream, that now increased so in depth that he felt that before
long he might be compelled to swim.
The hours or more that he passed in that flood of rushing waters seemed
afterwards like some terrible confused dream to the young man, for it
was long enough before he found himself in a part where the galleries
took an upward inclination, and he gained a place where, faint and
exhausted, he could rest with the water only about to his knees, and
draw out the map, by whose help he at length made out where he was.
Even then he had a long and arduous trial before he managed to wade to
the foot of the shaft late at night, to find lights burning and the
pumping-engine at its fullest speed, but unable to arrest the steady
rise of the water, which, by the next day, had completely drowned the
workings, though its progress was sufficiently slow to enable the men to
save their lives before it came upon them in the lower seams.
A fortnight elapsed before the pit was once more drained, during which
time Philip had been seriously ill, suffering greatly from the shock.
His first inquiry was for Ebenezer Parks, whose body, however, was not
found for some time, where it had been forced into a cranny by the
stream; and in strange corroboration of the tale Philip Hexton had to
tell, his great muscular hand still grasped the big iron bar, round
which the muscles were as tense as steel.
Poor wretch! In the gratification of his miserable malice he had done
much mischief and had lost his life; but he had hastened Philip Hexton's
plan of utilising the shaft of the old mine, which his villainous act
had drained, and the result before long was that the old pit property
was purchased for a mere song, the galleries fully opened out, and the
mine, over which Philip became overseer-in-chief, was acknowledged with
its double shaft to be the best-ventilated and safest in the land.
The best proof of which was that for the next ten years there was not a
single serious accident; and, as Mrs Hexton declared to her friends,
all through the thoughtfulness of her brave boy.