Читать книгу Peasant Tales of Russia - Nemirovich-Danchenko Vasilii Ivanovich - Страница 4

In front of what had been the exit from the gallery the miners stood silent. Others were running up from the more or less distant side galleries; their steps could be heard approaching and their lamps seen.

"What has happened, sir?" they exclaimed in alarm, as they came staring in a stupefied way at the place where a moment before had stood the principal shaft of the mine.

If the vaulted roof of the gallery had resisted the formidable shock of the collapse, it was only because it was part of the solid rock. Already the miners' feet were standing in water which had been liberated by this displacement of masses of earth and flowed into the gallery, reflecting the faint lights of the lamps and the vivid flame of the torch which the overseer of the mine held above his head, while its smoke ascended towards the high black vaulted roof.

"Lost! We are lost!" some one exclaimed in the crowd with a sob.

Old Ivan pushed his way to the front of the crowd. Neither he nor the others noticed that the water was flowing round their ankles. They found themselves confronted by a huge and visibly growing mass, composed of a mixture of stones from the ruined shaft and fragments of timber-work and earth. In the midst of all lay upside-down, the bucket which had become detached from its chain and carried away.

The overseer held his torch near a mass of earth which had assumed a round shape. It lit up the head of a miner with eyes immensely wide open whose fixed look seemed to be concentrated on the flame of the torch. There was something terrible in the sight of those motionless eyelids, those white teeth gleaming between two torn lips, that deep wound in the temple from which blood was oozing. A little lower down one saw projecting from the earth a hand with wide-extended fingers and a broken wrist. Still lower down could be seen the feet of miners whose bodies were invisible, buried under the earth. Not a single one moved.

Up to that moment no one had noticed them, but when the torch lit up this tragic spectacle the whole crowd of miners instinctively started backward. As he turned round, the overseer only saw faces pale with fright and shrinking from his torch as though there were something terrible about it. However, one miner, leaning his hand on the wall, bent forward, looking attentively at the dead man's face. What did he see extraordinary in it? He could not have said himself, but it was plain that he had not the power to turn his terrified eyes away from it. Another miner approached and touched something with his pickaxe which he quickly withdrew.

"Look at that piece of bread!" he exclaimed.

The overseer looked in his turn. He saw another hand projecting from underneath the earth holding a slice of bread sprinkled with coarse salt in its curved fingers. But the owner of the hand was completely buried and invisible.

Other miners ran up. Each pushed his way to the front, eager to see, then having contemplated the huge mass, retired with his face working. One of them put his hand over his eyes in order not to see the terrible sight. Others stood motionless, their faces turned to the wall, as though petrified, and seemed unable to turn their heads. One young workman, pale with fear, had seized hold of another, who as though rendered temporarily idiotic, kept on passing his finger over the damp black wall of the rock.

"There are perhaps still living men below," stammered the overseer in a low voice. A plaintive groan as though in answer to his question came to his ears from below the mass of fallen earth. He approached it again, but the groan was not repeated.

"Now, comrades, we must dig!" he said.

"Come you there, Orefieff Smirnoff! Let us get to work."

So speaking, the overseer seized a miner by the hand, led him before the mass of collapsed earth and began to work with him. Hardly had they commenced than a second landslip took place, and the first mass of earth, pressed by the second which had just fallen, spread in liquid mud over the gallery. The two men only leaped back just in time.

The overseer could now properly estimate the magnitude of the disaster. It was evident that they were imprisoned and that no help could reach them from without. But at any rate they could breathe easily, and the fact that the air circulated in the gallery much more freely than before the accident, showed that there was still some means of ventilation left. They must hasten to take advantage of it. In a few hours the whole mine would collapse owing to this immense falling-in of earth.

"Come here quickly, comrades!" said the overseer.

In the twinkling of an eye they surrounded him.

"There is only one way of saving ourselves," he said, "and that is by reaching the old upper gallery. Let those who care for their lives follow me. Perhaps the shaft is still intact on that side. It ought to be so, for the air circulates freely. Call those who are working in the side galleries, and all of you come back here."

Some of the miners, who had preserved more presence of mind than the rest, rushed to the side galleries to summon their companions.