Derrick Sterling Part 20

"Let him sleep, then; 'tis the easiest way out of it," responded a comrade.

One after another they succ.u.mbed to the effects of the heavy atmosphere, and fell asleep. Finally, all excepting the crippled lad, even including Monk Tooley, whose light Paul had taken and set beside him, lay stretched out on the hard floor, sound asleep and breathing in a distressed manner.

Paul felt drowsy, but the horror of his surroundings was too great to admit of his sleeping. He wanted to think, and try and prepare his mind for the awful unknown future that overshadowed him. As he thought, great tears began to run down his thin cheeks, then came a choking sob, and he buried his face in his hands. Gradually he became calm again, and his thoughts resembled delightful dreams, so full were they of pleasant things. In another moment they would have been dreams, and the last of that little band would have been wrapped in a slumber from which neither he nor they would ever have wakened. From this condition a sharp squeak caused Paul to start and look up.

Directly in front of him, and so close that he could have touched it, was a large rat, whose eyes twinkled and glistened in the lamplight. As Paul lifted his head it uttered another squeak and sat up on its hind-legs.

"I do believe it's Socrates," said Paul; and sure enough it was.

Mechanically, and without thinking of what he was about, Paul took a bit of meat from his lunch-pail and tossed it to the rat, which immediately seized it in its mouth and scampered away. Then Paul realized that he was wasting precious food, and made a vain effort to catch the rat. The beast was too quick for him, and darted away towards a dark corner of the chamber, whither Paul followed it, hoping to discover its nest and perhaps recover the meat.

He saw the rat run into a hole in the wall about two feet above the floor; and putting his face down to it, trying to look in, he felt a delicious current of fresh air. It was not very strong, but it caused the flame of his lamp to flicker, so that he withdrew it hurriedly for fear it should be extinguished.

Suddenly he started as though he had been shot, and almost let fall the lamp in his excitement. Had he heard a human voice? Of course not! How absurd to imagine such a thing! But there it was again; and it said,

"Holloa! Is anybody in there?"

The sound came to his ear distinctly enough this time through the hole, and placing his mouth close to it, Paul shouted back,

"Holloa! Yes, we're in here, and we want to get out. Who are you?"

The boy almost screamed for joy at the answer which came to this question; for it was,

"I'm Derrick Sterling. Are you Paul Evert?"

Derrick was almost as greatly affected when the voice said,

"Yes, I'm Paul, and there are a lot more of us in here, and we are stifling. But oh, Derrick, dear Derrick! I'm so glad you're not drowned."

Then Paul went back to the others, and found it almost impossible to waken them. He finally succeeded; and when they comprehended his great news, each one had to go to the hole, draw in a deep breath of the fresh air, and call through it to Derrick, for the sake of hearing him answer.

It was so good to hear a human voice besides their own; and though they knew he was a prisoner like themselves, it somehow filled them with new hope and longings for life. They had no tools with them, but all fell to work enlarging the hole with knives, the iron handles of their lunch-pails, or whatever else they could lay hands upon, while Paul stood by and held the lamp.

Although Derrick had plenty of air and s.p.a.ce to move about in, his situation had been fully as bad as theirs, for he had been alone.

Nothing is so terrible under such circ.u.mstances as solitude, with the knowledge that you are absolutely cut off from mankind, and may never hear a human voice again.

He had p.r.i.c.ked his lamp down very low so as to save his oil, and was lying at full length on the cold floor, a prey to the most gloomy thoughts. All sorts of fantastic forms seemed to mock at him out of the darkness. He could almost hear their jeering laughter, and was rapidly giving way to terror and despair, when a ray of light flickered for a moment on the rocky roof above him.

Springing to his feet and rubbing his eyes, he looked in the direction from which it seemed to have come, and saw it again, shining through what he had taken for a solid wall of rock. Then he called out, and Paul Evert, the very one of whom he had been in search, answered him.

Half an hour later the hole was sufficiently large to allow a man to squeeze through it, and Derrick had thrown his arms around Paul, and hugged him in his wild joy and excitement.

The thing for which the miners felt most grateful, next to their escape from the little stifling chamber and their meeting with Derrick, was his can of oil. Now they knew that with care they might keep a lamp burning for many hours; and the dread of total darkness, which is greater than that of hunger, or thirst, or any form of danger, no longer oppressed them.

Aleck, the blacksmith, had a watch, and from it they learned that it was still early in the evening; though it already seemed as if they had been imprisoned for days. Some of the men began to complain bitterly of hunger and to beg for food, but Monk Tooley said they should not eat until the watch showed them that morning had arrived.

To divert their thoughts, he proposed that they should make their way along the breast to its farther end, so as to be as near as possible to the slope and a chance of rescue. Acting upon this advice, they made the attempt. It was a most difficult undertaking, for the floor was of smooth slate, sloping at a sharp angle towards the gangway. It was like trying to crawl lengthwise of a steep roof to get from one row of the timbers that supported the upper wall to another. They were several hours on the journey, but finally reached the end of the long breast in safety. There they must wait until relieved from their awful situation by death, or by a rescuing party who would be obliged to tunnel through many yards of rock and coal to reach them.

They managed to construct a rude platform of timbers, on which to rest more comfortably than on the smooth sloping rock floor, and here most of them lay down to sleep.

Derrick and Paul lay side by side, with arms thrown about each other's necks. The former was nearly asleep when his companion whispered, "Dare!"

"Yes, Polly."

"Here's something for you; and if I don't live to get out, you'll always keep it to remember me by, won't you?"

"I shouldn't need it for that, Polly; but I'll always keep it, whatever it is."

It was Paul's sketch of the underground picnic-party, and Derrick knew what it was when he took it and thrust it into the bosom of his shirt, though days pa.s.sed before he had a chance to look at it.

Three days after this the same men and boys lay on their log platform, in almost the same positions, but they were haggard, emaciated, faint, and weak. Their last drop of oil had been burned, and they were in total darkness. A light would have shown that they lay like dead men.

Suddenly one of them lifts his head and listens. "Thank G.o.d! thank G.o.d!"

he exclaims, in a husky voice, hardly more than a whisper, "I hear them!

they're coming!"

Derrick's quick ear had detected the m.u.f.fled sound of blows, and his words gave new life to the dying men around him.

CHAPTER XVIII

TO THE RESCUE!--A MESSAGE FROM THE PRISONERS

From the moment the news came that nine men and boys were imprisoned in the flooded mine, preparations for their rescue, or at least of learning their fate, were pushed with all vigor. Although it had stopped raining, the night was dark, and great bonfires were lighted about the mouth of the slope. These were placed in charge of the old breaker boss, Mr.

Guffy, and his boys, who fed them with dry timbers, and kept up the brilliant blaze until daylight.

Around these fires the entire population of the village stood and discussed the situation; and by their light the workers were enabled to perform their tasks. The miners were divided into gangs, headed by the mine boss and by Tom Evert, and their work was the fetching of the steam pumps from across the valley and setting them up near the mouth of the slope. They had to be connected, by long lines of iron pipe, with the boilers under the breaker, and from each a double line of hose was carried down the slope until water was reached.

It was nearly daylight when these operations were completed, and a faint cheer went up from the weary watchers as they saw four powerful streams of water added to the torrent that the regular mine pump had kept flowing all night.

"Now, men," said the mine boss, when he saw that all was working to his satisfaction, "I want you to go home and get all the solid rest you can in the next two days, for after that I shall probably call upon you to work night and day."

"We'll be ready boss, whenever you give the word," was the prompt answer from a score of stalwart fellows. Then all turned towards their homes, knowing they could do nothing more until the pumps had prepared a way for them.

During the next day the news of the disaster spread far and wide, and from all sides visitors poured into the little village. Among these were a number of reporters from the metropolitan papers, some of whom, filled with a sense of their own importance, buzzed around like so many b.u.mblebees. They blundered into all sorts of places where they had no business, bored everybody whom they could approach with absurd questions, and made of themselves public nuisances generally.

While some among them acted thus foolishly, there were others who behaved like gentlemen and the sensible fellows they were. Of these the most noticeable was a well-built, pleasant-faced young man, named Allan McClain. He asked few questions, but each one had evidently been well considered and was directly to the point. He was quiet and un.o.btrusive, never displayed a note-book or pencil, kept his eyes and ears wide open, and, as a result, sent to his paper the best accounts of the situation that were published. How he did it was a mystery to the others, few of whom had even thought of giving to their business the careful study and attention that McClain bestowed upon it.

The mine boss had been particularly annoyed by the conduct of several of these members of the press, and when they applied to him for permission to accompany the first gang of workmen down into the mine, he firmly but courteously said "No."

He explained to them the dangers attending the proposed undertaking, and that there would be no room in the mine for any but those actively engaged in the work of rescue.

Some of the reporters made such an outcry at this, and talked so loudly of their rights and of what they would do in case the mine boss persisted in his refusal, that he finally said if they could not behave better than they had he should be compelled to order them from the colliery altogether.

During this scene Allan McClain listened to all that was said without speaking a word. Shortly afterwards the mine boss, meeting him alone, said, "I am sorry, sir, to be obliged to include you in my apparent discourtesy, but you know that if I made a single exception I could not enforce my rule."