Читать книгу Judith of the Red Hand - J. Monk Foster - Страница 8

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The point at which Gabriel Blackwood and his three companions had paused, finally, in their swift headlong rush down the tunnel, was probably about six hundred yards from the mouth of the adit or day-eye. And there, before the four miners, was a fiercely whirling mill race of a stream of black water, swashing and babbling riotously almost underfoot.

The disimprisoned flood was gushing out of a narrow gallery on the right hand side of the down brow, the noisy torrent was nearly half-a-yard deep, and its sweep was so rapid, its might and strength so considerable, that a man venturing into the flow would have been swept away like a cork, swirled helplessly along, battered to death against the rocky floor or sides, and whelmed to eternity in that underground flood.

Gabriel understood well whence the dark tide came. Only on the previous night he had been along that narrow road, boring for the sea of water pent up for years in the half-worked-out and abandoned workings of the old Slackey Brow Colliery. But the series of boreholes driven in the coal had failed to reach the water, so that it could be tapped and let off gradually, and now by some curious chance the prisoned flood had burst its bonds and was deluging the Hill End Mine.

"How was the water when you came through it, Birchall?" Gabriel asked sharply, addressing the crop-haired miner to whom he had spoken at the adit's mouth. "No wonder you made a rush for it if it was crashing all before it like this."

"The watter wasn't boilin' out like this when we scrambled through it, Gabriel," Birchall replied. "But if we'd stopped to warn the other men down the brow you can see what chance we should ha' had of our lives."

"Just so; and what of all the men and lads now?" young Blackwood cried gloomily. "Strange we have not seen or heard some of them trying to get out. And there's my father and our master," he added, in a hushed voice. "What has become of them? Did any of you hear them say which way they were going?"

"They only left word that you were to follow 'em," one of the miners answered.

"Good God! but I wish they had waited! How am I to follow them if I don't know which way they've taken? But they can't have gone up there," pointing a hand to the slightly inclined gallery out of which the clamorous stream was plunging; "and to go down there," indicating the flooded brow in front, "was to go to their death. By heaven! we must do something lads! Here, Birchall, grip my hand; all the others link fists, and let's see whether a chap can stand in this infernal flood or not."

Blackwood clasped like a vice the grimy fingers extended to him, and the remainder gripped horny palms and extended themselves out like a chain, then the underlooker dashed into the dark, icy-cold torrent sweeping down the brow, and the next instant a cry of horror and fear rang out above the splashing thunder of the inundation.

Gabriel had been whirled off his feet immediately; for a deadly, thrilling, intense moment he was sprawling there in that mad mill race of sucking water; and only that linked chain of flesh and bone, thew and sinew, behind him snatched him from a sudden and inglorious death.

The venturesome underlooker was hauled back to dry land like a great soused dog, and he shook himself after the manner of one, laughing grimly the while. He had been within arm's clutch of death; but that fact only made him set his teeth more doggedly, and resolve, cost what it might, to pluck every man and lad, manager and owner too, from the watery grave which seemed to hang over them.

"What next?" Blackwood muttered lowly, and more to himself than to the rest. "The down brow is closed to us yet, till that out-gush of a torrent slackens; it is of no use forcing a way to where the water has broken in, even if we could manage it; and what other road is open to us? Somewhere beyond that tide some four and thirty men and lads are waiting; and ten to one our old chap and Silas Haliburton are with them as well. Father and Master would rush down to warn the men; then they would find the flood too strong to face, and the question is what would be done then?"

"I've got it, Gabriel," the miner called Birchall cried, in a voice that denoted that a revelation had just swept through his brain. "Frightened by the flood they would all rush for the highest workings on the north side. That's about it, boss!"

"God knows that I hope it may be so!" Gabriel whispered fervently. "And now to reach them is our aim. How's that to be managed, Birchall?"

"Try the return air-way. There's air-doors and a cut-across just above there, Gabriel."

"So there is! Heaven knows I'd forgotten that!" Blackwood exclaimed, jumping erect and alert again. "I owe thee a quid when we get through this. Now," he went on quickly, "you will come with me, Jack; you two will wait here to watch the water, and report at once if you see it slacken or if you see anybody. Now, Birchall!"

Underlooker and collier sped back along the brow for a distance of a score of yards, till they came to a side opening and in half-a-minute they were rushing through a pair of heavy wooden doors, set a dozen yards apart, which swung to behind them with a deep boom. Ten strides more carried them into another brow running parallel with the one they had left; but it contained no line of rails, was swept clear of all dirt and other obstacles, and to an experienced eye was plainly a return air-way.

Downward along this Blackwood and Birchall plunged headlong. It was between four and five feet in height, a fathom in width, the sides were of roughly walled stone and hewn rock, and here and there, where old cross galleries had been, were walls now built up tightly to keep the ventilating current intact back on its way to the small upcast, sunk not far from the mouth of the tunnel.

Twenty, fifty, a hundred or more yards the two men sped, and they had long passed the parallel point in the main brow where the two men were watching the surging inundation, when again Gabriel drew up suddenly with a muttered curse of annoyance.

The cause of his abrupt pause needed no seeking. The loud splash of his flying feet had told both that the inundating tide was here, too; and standing there on the edge of the black shining water, with their Davy-lamps aloft, both Blackwood and Birchall could discern that the water stretched forward and downward as far as the faint light would carry their vision.

Then without a word Gabriel strode into the stream, his lamp poised on high, so that no splash might extinguish the tiny flame. Each stride he took along the downward sloping gallery plunged him more deeply into the flood. When he had advanced half a score of yards, the water was at his knees; at a score the icy liquid was girdling his belt; and a dozen paces further it buried his brawny shoulders, leaving only his neck, head, forearm and lamp poised clear betwixt the flood and overhanging roof.

Then he retreated—despair in his heart, yet satisfied in a way with what he had done and seen. The water was roofed in the return air-way, a few fathoms beyond the point to which he had ventured; and hence it must have reached a similar level in the main down-brow.

He mentioned that fact to his companion in an awed whisper. All hopes of reaching master, manager, miners, or lads by means of either brow was now impossible. And to pump out the devastating sea would take many days—perhaps weeks. The small steam pump used to keep the main brow clear of water was now buried far below; to erect a more powerful one would be a work of some time; and, in the meantime, there were many lives hanging in the fateful scales of dread death and joyous life.

The two miners retraced their steps and rejoined the two miners in the main road. They were sitting moodily on the marge of the tossing rivulet, but had seen nothing, heard nothing, and the inundating tide showed no sign of abatement, still rushing out of the side gallery with a swashing clamour, and dashing itself into spume against the other side of the main brow ere it swirled and leapt down the declivity to join the silent waters pent there.

Gabriel had passed a few words with the men, had told them how matters stood in the air-way, and had seated himself, dumb and beaten, on the edge of the torrent of tumbling waters. He was at his wits' end; was stunned by this calamity he could neither evade nor master. He was praying dumbly for higher aid, as men so placed will sometimes pray, when a heaven-sent inspiration flashed through his tortured brain.

"I have it! I have it, lads!" he cried loudly, flinging himself swiftly to his feet. "I knew there must be a way to get to those men, and it maddened me to think I was not able to find it. But I know now. What of the old south air-way disused more than a year ago? If the men and lads have flown for their lives to the highest parts of the seam, they will not be far from the end of the old air-way. We must try to reach them that way. You stay here, Bates, till you are relieved; Birchall and Saunders come along with me. Cheer up my lads, for there's plenty of chance yet of saving many lives. And may it please God that my dad and Haliburton are among the saved!"

Then Blackwood and the two miners he had named made their way back towards the mouth of the tunnel, leaving one man grimly watching the flood.