Читать книгу Judith of the Red Hand - J. Monk Foster - Страница 9

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It was night now, and darkness had fallen some two or three hours ago over the wide green valley in which the village of Saxilham lay, but the villagers were not all wrapped in slumber as was their wont. In not a few cottages there were sleepless eyes—eyes red with sorrowing—and aching hearts were sharply throbbing under many humble roofs.

Many a long hour ago the news of the disastrous flood at the Hill End Mine had flown over the countryside, and the intelligence that thirty odd miners and lads were either lost or missing—the manager and owner among the rest—had sent an electric shock of poignant pain through the breasts of all those who had bread-winners and kinsfolk among the submerged or imprisoned toilers.

Now at ten o'clock—half-a-score of hours after the calamity had occurred—little more was known of the fate of the missing ones than had been known at noonday. The crowd that had flocked to the tunnel's mouth in the afternoon had tired itself with waiting; had drifted homeward in deep woe; and by the big cresset fire burning near the cavernous entrance to the mine there were standing, lounging, or walking, now, only the banksmen and a few other men.

But down below there, under the dark hillside, strong, earnest, daring pit-men were steadily boring a way towards one point near which it was thought most or many of the missing souls would be found; and that all might be rescued—mine master, manager, miner and lads—was the voiced or unvoiced fervent prayer of all.

Like a flash of inspiration that thought of the old disused southern air-way had flashed through Blackwood's mind. It was a long, circuitous, dilapidated route, which started a few score yards from the mouth of the adit; it had been abandoned on that account, and a new air-way made; it was likely that the gallery had fallen and caved in at various points, but it was the only path that could be used to reach the imprisoned miners, and on quitting the flooded down-brow the young underlooker at once rushed thither.

It was only midday when Gabriel had rushed up the brow with Birchall and Saunders at his heels, leaving Bates watching the flood; and speeding towards the ever-expanding speck of silver which marked the mouth of the tunnel, they paused when a few score yards from it, swept to the left, darted through another pair of heavy doors, crossed the return air-gallery, and in five minutes were in the abandoned air-ways.

Then Gabriel paused a minute to think. The road to the miners—dead or alive—was there in front of him, but a path would have to be swept, cleared, carved out with pick and hammer and spade. So he despatched Birchall to the surface with orders to bring more men, told Saunders to fetch tools for the work to be done, and then, stripping to the waist, he prepared for the grim struggle with circumstance.

Half an hour later that long deserted gallery was alive with human voices, astir with energetic men, and the clang of the hammer and pick and spade echoed along the neglected, ruinous old road, where heaps of debris or tumbled rocks, barred the progress of the would-be rescuers.

For some four hours Blackwood and his men, now increased to six, picked and delved and shovelled a path onward. Slowly but surely they were fighting their way in the direction in which the face of the old southern workings lay; and at six o'clock, after burrowing like rabbits through half a hundred small falls and subsidences, the underlooker and those with him found themselves at the face of a collier's working place.

"Now," cried Gabriel, as he knelt down near the upright wall of unwrought coal, "I feel certain we must be right opposite some of the highest places which were being worked from the south jig; and if the men and lads fled before the flood, as I think they must have done, then they must be on the other side waiting for help."

"Waitin' for help, Blackwood?" one of the sweating miners broke in. "And how long will they have to wait with that wall of coal between us?"

"God knows! But I hope they are there all the same. Better to wait hours, days, a week even—than be drowned in that black flood. But from what I have heard my father say, the wall of coal between here and Mark Pender's place can't be more than a dozen or twenty yards thick."

"Twenty yards thick, Gabriel," Birchall muttered. "Why even if they're on the other side if might take a week to cut a road to 'em. They'll all die or be choked to death before then."

"Not at all," Gabriel cried, cheerily. "It might take a week to cut twenty yards in ordinary times, but you forget how men will work—can work, too—when lives are at stake. Now hush you all and we'll soon get to know if there's anybody alive on the other side."

All voices were hushed at once, and seizing a pick Gabriel swung it over his shoulder and rained a sharp volley of quick heavy blows upon the splintering and flying coal. Then all listened intently, but nought was to be heard, save the laboured thumping of their own hearts. Next Blackwood raised the heavy double-headed "metal" hammer, and with it pounded fiercely upon the face of crumbling mineral; then every man held his breath while he strained his attentive ears.

And then came a sound which made all hearts there leap joyously. Rat-tat! rat-tat! rat-tat! came faintly but clearly through the barrier of solid coal, and all then knew that living beings were on the farther side, answering their signal. But to make belief positive Blackwood hammered on the wall of mineral again and again; and every time his signal was answered in the same way.

Now was the time to act, not think merely. The young underlooker did both.

"The men and lads are there behind the coal," he cried. "At all costs we must have them out. You men are all fagged out; you must go. But here I stay till the coal is cut through. You, Hyland," addressing one of his day-wage men who had joined him during the afternoon, "attend to what I say. Go to the village and send in at once three of the best colliers in Saxilham. Tell them they shall have a pound each for every four hours they work. And at ten o'clock to-night—it is only six now—send three other good men to relieve them on the same terms. I don't think this barrier of coal between us and the caged men is more than a dozen yards thick, and I mean to have it cut through before I stir an inch. Now go quick, Hyland; do your best, my lad, and I'll never forget you!"

The man went away, leaving Blackwood alone, and for a minute he crouched there, gloomily reflective. Then he seized the hammer and signalled anew; and when his summons was answered he fell to with the pick upon the wall of coal, marking out the narrow tunnel which he meant to have driven with all possible speed. And then, as if they fully understood his wish, and what was to be done to save them, he heard the steady and incessant thud! thud! thud! of a pick on the farther side.

In less than an hour three miners—each one a famed hewer of coal—had joined the underlooker, and were soon stripped and hard at work for a short spell, each of the trio relieving the other in turns. The seam was a soft and friable one, the road to be cut was only a yard in width and two feet six high, and working as only brawny expert pit-men can work when the reward is a sovereign for a short shift of a few hours, and when lives are at stake, the heavy picks crashed into the coal, splinters flew like sparks from a blacksmith's anvil, dust hung in the air, and slowly, but steadily, the narrow tunnel was literally bitten out of the solid mineral. And all the while pick answered pick from each side of the barrier.

Hyland had come back with the miners, in his hands food and drink for Blackwood, in his mouth news. The outburst of water had practically subsided; but the main brow was filled with the flood, and the back brow was the same. The only path to the imprisoned miners was that then being hewn out by the pick.

It was nearly ten o'clock at night when the second set of coal hewers came to relieve the first three, and by that hour a narrow gallery over five yards deep had been eaten out of the wall of mineral. Urged by Blackwood, the new-comers fell to work with a zest, the picks of the workers on the other side never ceasing, and the sound of them growing plainer with the passing of each hour.

At five in the morning, when the sun was rising over the quiet valley of the Saxe, when the village workers were faring forth to toil, and the relatives of the missing miners were struggling back to a knowledge of their woe, the picks of the excited hewers splintered through to each other, and a swift rush of wind hissed through the jagged hole.

Then black fists were thrust in the aperture, rescuers and saved called out prayers and each others' names; and then above the heart-felt babble of tongues Gabriel Blackwood's voice rang out.

"Silence for a minute, men! Now let me know how many of you there are!"

"Four-and-thirty!" a voice sang back, which Gabriel recognised as that of Roderick Norbury.

"Where's Seth Blackwood and Silas Haliburton, then?"

"We don't know! Can't tell! We've never seen 'em. But four-and-thirty of us are all here safe. Quick! Make the hole bigger, so we can all come through! The lads are famishin', and the men nearly dead!"

In a quarter of an hour the hole was enlarged, the lads and miners had crawled through, and were on their way home; and all men knew by then that the only two lives lost by the flood were those of the manager and mine-owner. Exactly how they had met their fate no one could tell.