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FROM "FACING DEATH."

[Jack Simpson was a young collier working at the Vaughan pit in Lancashire. By careful attention to his work, and by private study of the science of mining, he had raised himself to the position of "viewer" or underground foreman. The mine having been found to be badly ventilated and dangerous, steps were being taken to put it right. But, as the events of the following story show, it was too late.]

One day, when Jack came up from his rounds at ten o'clock, to eat his breakfast and write up his journal of the state of the mine, he saw Mr. Brook (the owner of the mine) and the manager drive up to the pit mouth. Jack shrank back from the little window of the office where he was writing, and did not look out again until he knew that they had descended the mine; he did not wish to have any appearance of thrusting himself forward.

For another hour he wrote; and then the window of the office flew in pieces, the chairs danced, and the walls rocked, while a dull heavy roar, like distant thunder, burst upon his ears.

Jack leaped to his feet and rushed to the door. Black smoke was pouring up from the pit's mouth, sticks and pieces of wood and coal were falling in a shower in the yard; and Jack saw that his worst fears had been realized, and that a terrible explosion had taken place in the Vaughan pit.

For a moment he stood stunned. There were, he knew, over three hundred men and boys in the pit, and he turned faint and sick as the thought of their fate came across him. Then he ran towards the top of the shaft.

The bankman lay insensible at a distance of some yards from the pit, where he had been thrown by the force of the explosion. Two or three men came running up with white scared faces. The smoke had nearly ceased already; the damage was done, and a deadly stillness seemed to reign.

Jack ran into the engine-house. The engineman was leaning against a wall, scared and almost fainting.

"Are you hurt, John?"

"No!"

"Pull yourself round, man. The first thing is to see if the lift is all right. I see one of the cages is at bank, and the force of the explosion is in the upcast shaft. Just give a turn or two to the engine and see if the winding gear is all right. Slowly."

The engineman turned on the steam; there was a slight movement, and then the engine stopped.

"A little more steam," Jack said. "The cage has caught, but it may come."

There was a jerk, and then the engine began to work.

"That is all right," Jack said, "whether the lower cage is on or not. Stop now, and wind it back, and get the other cage up again. Does the bell act, I wonder?"

Jack pulled the wire which, when in order, struck a bell at the bottom of the shaft, and then looked at a bell hanging over his head for the answer. None came.

"I expect the wire's broken," he said, and went out to the pit's mouth again.

The surface-men were all gathered round now, the tip-men, and the yard-men, and those from the coke-ovens, all looking wild and pale.

"I am going down," Jack said; "we may find some poor fellows near the bottom, and can't wait till a head-man comes on the ground. Who will go with me? I don't want any married men, for you know, lads, there may be another blow at any moment."

"I will go with you," one of the yard-men said, stepping forward; "there's no one dependent on me."

"I, too," said another; "it doesn't matter to any one but myself whether I come up again or not."

THE VAUGHAN PIT.—II.

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.

THE VAUGHAN PIT.—III.

The explosion had, as Jack well knew, destroyed all the doors which direct the currents of the air, and the ventilation had entirely ceased. The lower part of the mine, where the explosion had been strongest, would soon be filled with choke-damp, and Jack was making for the old workings, near the upper boundary line of the pit. There the air would remain pure long after it had become poisonous elsewhere.

It was in this quarter of the mine that Bill Haden (Jack's adopted father) and some twenty other colliers worked.

Presently Jack saw lights ahead, and heard a clattering of steps. It was clear that, as he had hoped, the miners working there had escaped the force of the explosion, which had, without doubt, played awful havoc in the parts of the mine where the greater part of the men were at work.

"Stop! stop!" Jack shouted, as they came up to him.

"Is it fire, Jack?" Bill Haden, who was one of the first, asked.

"Yes, Bill; didn't you feel it?"

"Some of us thought we felt a suck of air a quarter hour since, but we weren't sure; and then came another, which blew out the lights. Come along, lad; there is no time for talking."

"It's of no use going on," Jack said; "the shaft's choked up. I came down after the first blow, and I fear there's no living soul in the new workings. By this time they must be full of the choke-damp."

The men looked at each other with blank faces.

"Have you seen Brook?" Jack asked eagerly.

"Yes, he passed our stall with Johnstone ten minutes ago, just before the blast came."

"We may catch him in time to stop him yet," Jack said, "if he has gone round to look at the walling of the old workings. There are three men at work there."

"I'll go with you, Jack," Bill Haden said. "Our best place is my stall, lads," he went on, turning to the others; "that is pretty well the highest ground in the pit, and the air will keep good there as long as anywhere—maybe till help comes. You come along with us, mate," he said, turning to the man who worked with him in his stall.

As they hurried along, Jack, in a few words, told what had taken place, as far as he knew it. Five minutes' run brought them to the place where the masons were at work walling up the entrance to some old workings. They looked astonished at the newcomers.

"Have you seen Mr. Brook?"

"Yes, he and the manager have just gone on. There, don't you see their lights down the heading? No? Well, I saw them a moment since."

"Come along," Jack said. "Quick! I expect they've met it."

At full speed they hurried along. Presently they all stopped short; the lights burnt low, and a choking sensation came on them.

"Back, Jack, for your life!" gasped Bill Haden; but at that moment Jack's feet struck something, which he knew was a body.

"Down at my feet; help!" he cried.

He stooped and tried to raise the body. Then the last gleam of his light went out—his lungs seemed to cease acting, and he saw no more.