A Perilous Secret Part 52

Hope looked at his watch and said, "There was a good deal of water in the tank when you blew up the mine; there must be about thirty tons in it now."

"Well, then," said Burnley, "you that knows everything, help me brust the wall o' tank; it's thin enow."

Hope reflected.

"If we let in the whole body of water," said he, "it would shatter us to pieces, and crush us against the wall of our prison and drown us before it ran away through the obstructed pa.s.sages into the new workings.

Fortunately, we have no pickaxe, and can not be tempted to self-slaughter."

This silenced Burnley for the day, and he remained sullenly apart; still the idea never left his mind. The next day, toward evening, he asked Hope to light his own lamp, and come and look at the wall of the tank.

"Not without me," whispered Grace. "I see him cast looks of hatred at you."

They went together, and Burnley bade Hope observe that the water was trickling through in places, a drop at a time; it could not penetrate the coaly veins, nor the streaks of clay, but it oozed through the porous strata, certain strips of blackish earth in particular, and it trickled down, a drop at a time. Hope looked at this feature with anxiety, for he was a man of science, and knew by the fate of banked reservoirs, great and small, the strange explosive power of a little water driven through strata by a great body pressing behind it.

"You'll see, it will brust itsen," said Burnley, exultantly, "and the sooner the better for me; for I'll never get alive out on t' mine; yow blowed me to the men, and they'll break every bone in my skin."

Hope did not answer this directly.

"There, don't go to meet trouble, my man," said he. "Give me the can, Grace. Now, Burnley, hold this can, and catch every drop till it is full."

"Why, it will take hauf a day to fill it," objected Burnley, "and it will be hauf mud when all is done."

"I'll filter it," said Hope. "You do as you are bid."

He darted to a part of the mine where he had seen a piece of charred timber; he dragged it in with him, and asked Grace for a pocket-handkerchief; she gave him a clean cambric one. He took his pocket-knife and soon sc.r.a.ped off a little heap of charcoal; and then he sewed the handkerchief into a bag--for the handy man always carried a needle and thread.

Slowly, slowly the muddy water trickled into the little can, and then the bag being placed over the larger can, slowly, slowly the muddy water trickled through Hope's filter, and dropped clear and drinkable into the larger can. In that dead life of theirs, with no incidents but torments and terrors, the hours pa.s.sed swiftly in this experiment. Hope sat upon a great lump of coal, his daughter kneeled in front of him, gazing at him with love, confidence, reverence; and Burnley kneeled in front of him too, but at a greater distance, with wolfish eyes full of thirst and nothing else.

At last the little can was two-thirds full of clear water. Hope took the large iron spoon which he had found along with the tea, and gave a full spoonful to his daughter. "My child," said he, "let it trickle very slowly over your tongue and down your throat; it is the throat and the adjacent organs which suffer most from thirst." He then took a spoonful himself, not to drink after an a.s.sa.s.sin. He then gave a spoonful to Burnley with the same instructions, and rose from his seat and gave the can to Grace, and said, "The rest of this pittance must not be touched for six hours at least."

Burnley, instead of complying with the wise advice given him, tossed the liquid down his throat with a gesture, and then dashing down the spoon, said, "I'll have the rest on't if I die for it," and made a furious rush at Grace Hope.

She screamed faintly, and Hope met him full in that incautious rush, and felled him like a log with a single blow. Burnley lay there with his heels tapping the ground for a little while, then he got on his hands and knees, and crawled away to the farthest corner of his own place, and sat brooding.

That night when Grace retired to rest Hope lay down at her feet, with his hammer in his hand, and when one slept the other watched, for they feared an attack. Toward the morning of the next day Grace's quick senses heard a mysterious noise in Burnley's quarter; she woke her father. Directly he went to the place, and he found Burnley at work on his knees tearing away with his hands and nails at the ruins of the shaft. Apparently fury supplied the place of strength, for he had raised quite a large heap behind him, and he had laid bare the feet up to the knees of a dead miner. Hope reported this in a hushed voice to Grace, and said, solemnly, "Poor wretch, he's going mad, I fear."

"Oh no," said Grace, "that would be too horrible. Whatever should we do?"

"Keep him to his own side, that is all," said Hope.

"But," objected Grace in dismay, "if he is mad, he won't listen, and he will come here and attack me."

"If he does," said Hope, simply, "I must kill him, that's all."

Burnley, however, in point of fact, kept more and more aloof for many hours; he never left his work till he laid bare the whole body of that miner, and found a pickaxe in his dead hand. This he hid, and reserved it for deadly uses; he was not clear in his mind whether to brain Hope with it, and so be revenged on him for having shut him up in that mine, or whether to peck a hole in the tank and destroy all three by a quicker death than thirst or starvation. The savage had another and more horrible reason for keeping out of sight; maddened by thirst he had recourse to that last extremity better men have been driven to; he made a cut with his clasp-knife in the breast of the dead miner, and tried to swallow jellied blood.

This horrible relief never lasts long, and the penalty follows in a few hours; but in the meantime the savage obtained relief, and even vigor, from this ghastly source, and seeing Hope and his daughter lying comparatively weak and exhausted, he came and sat down at a little distance in front of them: that was partly done to divert Hope from examining his shambles and his unnatural work.

"Maister," said he, "how long have we been here?"

"Six days and more," said Hope.

"Six days," said Grace, faintly, for her powers were now quite exhausted--"and no signs of help, no hope of rescue."

"Do not say so, Grace. Rescue in time is certain, and, therefore, while we live there is hope."

"Ay," said Burnley, "for you tew but not for me. Yow telt the men that I fired t' mine, and if one of those men gets free they'll all tear me limb from jacket. Why should I leave one grave to walk into another? But for yow I should have been away six days agone."

"Man," said Hope, "can not you see that my hand was but the instrument?

it was the hand of Heaven that kept you back. Cease to blame your victims, and begin to see things as they are and to repent. Even if you escape, could the white faces ever fade from your sight, or the dying shrieks ever leave your ear, of the brave men you so foully murdered?

Repent, monster, repent!"

Burnley was not touched, but he was scared by Hope's solemnity, and went to his own corner muttering, and as he crouched there there came over his dull brain what in due course follows the horrible meal he had made--a feverish frenzy.

In the meantime Grace, who had been lying half insensible, raised her head slowly and said, in a low voice, "Water, water!"

"Oh, my girl," said Hope, in despair, "I'll go and get enough to moisten your lips; but the last sc.r.a.p of food has gone, the last drop of oil is burning away, and in an hour we shall be in darkness and despair."

"No, no, father," said Grace, "not while there is water there, beautiful water."

"But you can not drink _that_ unfiltered; it is foul, it is poisonous."

"Not that, papa," said Grace, "far beyond that--look! See that clear river sparkling in the sunlight; how bright and beautiful it shines! Look at the waving trees upon the other side, the green meadows and the bright blue sky, and there--there--there--are the great white swans. No, no. I forgot, they are not swans, they are ships sailing to the bright land you told me of, where there is no suffering and no sorrow."

Then Hope, to his horror, began to see that this must be the very hallucination of which he had read, a sweet illusion of green fields and crystal water, which often precedes actual death by thirst and starvation. He trembled, he prayed secretly to G.o.d to spare her, and not to kill his new-found child, his darling, in his arms.

By-and-by Grace spoke again, but this time her senses were clear; "How dark it's grown!" she said. "Ah, we are back again in that awful mine."

Then, with the patient fort.i.tude of a woman when once she thinks the will of the Almighty is declared, she laid her hand upon his shoulder, and she said, soothingly, "Dear father, bow to Heaven's will;" then she held up both her feeble arms to him--"kiss me, father--FOR WE ARE TO DIE!"

With these firm and patient words, she laid her sweet head upon the ground, and hoped and feared no more.

But the man could not bow like the woman. He kissed her as she bade him, and laid her gently down; but after that he sprang wildly to his feet in a frenzy, and raged aloud, as his daughter could no longer hear him.

"No, no," he cried, "this thing can not be, they have had seven days to get to us.

"Ah, but there are mountains and rocks of earth and coal piled up between us. We are buried alive in the bowels of the earth.

"Well, and shouldn't I have blasted a hundred rocks, and picked through mountains, to save a hundred lives, or to save one such life as this, no matter whose child she was?

"Ah! you poor sc.u.m, you came to me whenever you wanted me, and you never came in vain. But now that I want you, you smoke your pipes, and walk calmly over this living tomb I lie in.

"Well, call yourselves men, and let your friends perish; I am a man, and I can die."

Then he threw himself wildly on his knees over his insensible daughter.

"But my child! Oh G.o.d! look down upon my child! Do, pray, see the horror of it. The horror and the h.e.l.lish injustice! She has but just found her father. She is just beginning life; it's not her time to die! Why, you know, she only came here to save her father. Heaven's blessing is the right of pious children; it's promised in G.o.d's Word. They are to live long upon earth, not to be cut off like criminals."

Then he rose wildly, and raged about the place, flinging his arms on high, so that even Burnley, though his own reason was shaken, cowered away from the fury of a stronger mind.