Читать книгу The Black Mole - George E. Rochester - Страница 9
ОглавлениеTHE INFERNO
“Are they—are they human?” gasped Bert hoarsely.
“Yes, they’re human all right,” replied Kenyon grimly, staring at the queer, red glow beyond the faces which were pressed against the look-out windows of the Black Mole. “By Jove! I’ve got it, Bert!”
His fingers tightened on Bert’s arm.
“D’you know what this is?” rasped Kenyon. “It’s a coal mine, and it’s on fire. There’s been an accident. These men are trapped!”
Bert, staring through the look-out window, realised the truth of Kenyon’s grim words. In her blind burrowing through the bowels of the earth, the Mole had smashed her way into a working of a coal mine where the burning roof had fallen, imprisoning the miners in a dreadful, fiery tomb.
“What are we going to do, guv’nor?” asked Bert hoarsely.
“Help them!” replied Kenyon. “Get them aboard and take the Mole up!”
Bert stared at him, his face white, a hundred questions trembling on his livid lip.
To take the Mole up was madness. Above the surface would be crowds of people gathered round the pithead. The Mole would be seized the instant it broke ground and Kenyon and Bert would be arrested.
But could these men be left down there to die when only the Mole could save them? No, not even if twenty years’ penal servitude apiece was to be the outcome of it for Kenyon and Bert.
Wrenching open the sliding door in the hull of the Mole, Kenyon stumbled out into the lurid inferno of crimson smoke and deadly gas caused by the burning coal and slag.
“In here, men!” he gasped. “I’ve no oxygen—but I’ll get you to the surface if I can. For pity’s sake, hurry!”
Nearly all in himself, he guided the men into the Mole. There were a dozen of them all told. Eight were on their feet, two had to be supported, and the remaining two were carried in.
“Is that the lot?” croaked Kenyon, turning to a grey-haired veteran miner who seemed about the toughest of them all.
“Yes, that’s all!” replied the miner.
Groping for the switch which controlled the door, Kenyon pressed it. The door slid shut, and as Kenyon switched the motors the blades whirled into life and the Mole commenced to bore her way out of that underground inferno.
The atmosphere inside the hull was as foul and hot as it had been in the burning mine, and the rescued men gasped and groaned with the agony of tortured lungs.
Kenyon and Bert were on the point of collapse and Kenyon was handling the controls mechanically. But the Mole was boring her way upwards although what would happen when she burst through the surface of the ground Kenyon dared not think.
The grey-haired old miner staggered to where Kenyon was slumped in the control seat.
“We didn’t expect this from you, mister,” he croaked.
Kenyon’s lips twisted in a mirthless grin.
“Why not?” he asked weakly.
“Well, you’re—you’re Zworge, aren’t you?” said the other.
“No, I’m not Zworge,” replied Kenyon haltingly. “I am the man who was rescued from the Tower. Zworge is my enemy—he rescued me for his own purpose—I was innocent of the charges brought against me——”
The words trailed away. He hadn’t the strength to go on. Talking sapped his fast diminishing strength in that foul and poisonous atmosphere.
But there was something he wanted to know—something about Zworge.
“Listen!” he gasped. “Do you know a big, deserted house near here—a house surrounded by a high wall?”
“There’s only one deserted house that I know of,” replied the miner wonderingly, “and that’s Hangman’s Hall. Why d’you ask?”
“That’ll be it!” muttered Kenyon, to himself. “That’ll be Zworge’s headquarters!”
The depth gauge was now registering less than six feet and next instant the black, whirling conical-shaped nose of the Mole burst through the surface of the ground. The long cylindrical monster heaved itself up from out the bowels of the earth, to come to rest in a field within a quarter of a mile of the pithead.
Raising his hand in one last feeble effort, Kenyon pressed the switch which controlled the door in the hull. The door slid back, and as the clean, life-giving air poured into the Mole, Kenyon stared out with bloodshot eyes.
“I guess it’s all up!” he muttered grimly, for the Mole had been sighted by the crowds gathered at the pithead and men and women were streaming across the field towards it.
There was no time for Kenyon and Bert to get the semi-conscious miners out of the earth crawler and escape. There was nothing to be done now except submit to arrest. But as the foremost of the excited crowd dashed up to the Mole, the veteran miner thrust Kenyon aside and stepped in front of him with arms outflung.
“Stop!” he shouted, facing the crowd. “Listen, mates. This man has saved us from death—every one of us who was trapped in the working. He isn’t Zworge. He’s the man who escaped from the Tower. He says he’s innocent and I believe him. Give him a chance, mates!”
The crowd gaped, dumbfounded, and then a woman whose son had been rescued by the Mole screamed:
“You’re right, Joe! Let him go. He’s saved our lads for us!”
Other voices roared agreement and, with relief in his heart, Kenyon leaned weakly against the hull of the Mole as a group of men rushed into the steel monster and commenced to bring out the rescued miners.
Then suddenly Kenyon’s eyes narrowed and his haggard face became grim and set. For a police car had dashed up to the field and from it jumped Inspector Carter of Scotland Yard, and four plainclothes policemen.
It was obvious what had happened. Inspector Carter, touring the district in search of the Mole, had been attracted to the scene either by the pit disaster or by the earth crawler’s sudden appearance above ground.
“Make way!” cried Inspector Carter, commencing to elbow his way through the crowd. “Any man obstructing us will be taken into custody!”
But a foot tripped him here, an elbow thrust him back there, and broad shoulders barred the passage of him and his men as they fought desperately to reach the Mole.
Meanwhile, encouraged by the frenzied urgings of the grey-haired veteran, the rescued miners were being carried out of the earth crawler as swiftly as possible.
Inspector Carter, purplish with rage and exertion, was less than five paces from the Mole when the last man was carried out.
“There you are!” rapped the veteran, wheeling on Kenyon. “In you get and the best of luck to you!”
For one precious instant of time his honest, toil-worn hand held Kenyon’s in a firm and crushing grip. Then, as Kenyon leapt into the Mole, the inspector flung aside the last man who barred his passage.
Even as he reached the door, however, it slid shut with a clang and Kenyon and Bert were safe inside. A moment later the blades began slowly to revolve, and under the pull of her gyro-motor the Mole dipped her whirling nose and disappeared from view with a flying cloud of earth and turf, leaving a vast but rapidly-filling hole.
Inside the great steel monster the air was fresh once again, but the oxygen would not last long.
“And that Scotland Yard man and his detectives will be waiting for us to come up again,” grinned Kenyon. “But we’ll beat them this time, Bert!”
“How, guv’nor?” demanded Bert, staring.
“By finding a disused working which hasn’t been affected by the disaster,” explained Kenyon. “Every mine has dozens of disused workings with ventilation shafts. We’ll bore around until we find one, and we’ll lie low there until nightfall. We’ll keep the ports open to let some air into the Mole.”
“And when night comes?” demanded Bert.
“We’ll raid Hangman’s Hall and grab Zworge and his crew,” said Kenyon grimly.
About twenty minutes later, after boring through the tunnels and galleries of the mine, the Mole came to rest in a damp and stone-sided working deep down in the bowels of the earth.
By nightfall both men were fit and refreshed after a well-earned sleep. Both, however, were tremendously hungry, for it was long since they had eaten.
“There’ll be no grub at Hangman’s Hall!” observed Kenyon, studying a map which he had taken from the chart locker.
A few minutes later the Mole was crawling slowly along the working in the direction of the distant pit shaft. Searchlights were switched on, and as it turned into one of the main workings, Kenyon saw a crowd of men in gas masks working with picks and drills.
“They’re the safety men trying to prevent the fire spreading,” he said to Bert, and pulled back the motor switch until the Mole was moving dead slow.
There was no room in the working for both the men and the monster of steel, and the men were forced to retreat before its slow approach.
They were in no danger, however, and, clustered by the cage at the bottom of the shaft, they saw the earth crawler suddenly swing its whirling, conical nose and commence to burrow its way into the solid rock and stone which formed the side of the working.
It was impossible for any of the men to follow owing to the crashing rocks and boulders, and the Mole bored her secret way through the bowels of the earth until Kenyon judged by his instrument board that he was below the wall which surrounded the grounds of Hangman’s Hall.
Operating the switch which controlled the gyro-motor, Kenyon took the Mole upwards, running the motors dead slow as she approached the surface of the ground.
With only a dull whirring to give warning of her presence, the earth crawler broke ground, slowly revolving blades driving her up into the grass and bushes of the long-neglected grounds.
Switching off the motors, Kenyon pulled open the door in the hull and peered out. He saw the dark bulk of the house rearing itself above the trees about a quarter of a mile away. Nothing broke the silence of the night.
“Right! Come on, Bert!” he said softly and a few moments later the two men were creeping stealthily through the bushes towards the steel shed which flanked the house and which had been used to house the Mole.
The great metal doors were still lying on the concrete where Kenyon had flattened them when he had escaped in the Mole the night before, and the vast hangar-like shed was in darkness.
From the house itself there came not a sound, nor was any light to be seen from the shuttered windows.
“Wonder if they’ve done a bolt?” muttered Bert, as he and Kenyon crept into the shed.
“We’ll find out later,” replied Kenyon grimly. “At the moment we want those oxygen cylinders!”
The thin beam of his electric torch played for an instant on the gleaming oxygen cylinders lying in their racks against the walls.
Snapping out the beam, Kenyon thrust the torch into his pocket and for the next twenty minutes he and Bert carried the cylinders to the Mole.
“Now we’ll have a look inside the house, Bert!” said Kenyon.
“I’m with you, guv’nor,” muttered Bert uneasily. “But, gosh, I wish we had a gun!”
“We’ve got something nearly as good,” replied Kenyon. “There’s one or two cylinders of Zworge’s poison gas left in the shed—the chlor-ether which he used in the Tower. We’ll see what one of those will do!”
It would do very little, reflected Bert to himself, for if Zworge and his gang were inside the house they would use their guns before the gas could take effect on them.
But Bert had an almost blind faith and trust in Kenyon, so he crept back with him to the shed, prepared to see this perilous job through to the bitter end.
Again Kenyon’s torch snapped on and off, revealing the gas masks hanging on their pegs. Selecting a couple, Kenyon handed one to Bert and thrust the other into his own pocket.
Then swiftly examining the chlor-ether cylinders until he found a full one, he looped a piece of wire round the nose and tightened the wire around his waist in the form of a belt, from which hung the deadly cylinder.
“What’s the idea, guv’nor?” whispered Bert.
“You’ll see!” muttered Kenyon. “Come on.”
