Success and How He Won It

by E. Werner

"That was an explosion!" said the voice of the chief-engineer; during the last few critical minutes he had been on guard in the great hall at the head of the younger officials and all the available servants, ready to hasten to Arthur's assistance. "An accident has happened in the mine, Herr Berkow, we must go over."

For one moment horror seemed to paralyse every limb. No one moved; the warning was all too terrible. At the very moment when one party was rushing forward bent on the other's annihilation, destruction of another kind had reached their brothers down below. Now they were imperatively called on to abandon the attack and hurry to the rescue. Arthur was the first to recover himself.

"To the shafts!" he cried to the other officials, who by this time had come out of the house and were pressing round him, and, so saying, he set the example by himself speeding off before them all in the direction of the works.

"To the shafts!" shouted Ulric, turning to the miners.

The command was unnecessary; in an instant the crowd was rushing in wild haste, their leader at their head, to the scene of the disaster. He and Arthur reached the works first, and almost simultaneously.

Nothing was to be seen as yet of the effects of the destroying element; the thick column of smoke issuing from the shafts alone bore witness to what had happened, but it was eloquent enough. In less than ten minutes the whole surrounding space was crowded with human beings, who, now that their first mute horror was over, broke out loudly into lamentations and cries of fear and despair.

There is something appalling and yet elevating about a great misfortune which is not due to the hand of man, for it almost invariably brings into play the better side of human nature, saving its honour, and cleansing it from those evil passions which at other times disfigure and obscure it. The revolution in the general feeling was so sudden, so instantaneous, it hardly seemed to be the same multitude which, but a few minutes before, had clamoured round the house, menacing destruction if not murder, because their wild demands were not conceded. Strife, enmity, the hatred of long months, all gave way now to the one thought of rescuing those below.

To this rescue, miners and officials, friends and foes, pressed forward indiscriminately, and foremost among them were they who had been most ardent in rebellion. An hour before they had threatened their comrades, and would have attacked and beaten them down if their leader's own father had not led the gang, and now that the self-same comrades were in peril of their lives, each man would have risked his own to have succoured them. The awful message had borne fruit.

"Back!" cried Arthur, stepping forward to meet them, as, without any definite plan, they pressed blindly forward. "You cannot help now, you will only hinder the officials' approach. We must first ascertain how and where it is possible to penetrate into the shaft. Make way for the engineers."

"Make way for the engineers!" repeated those nearest him. The cry resounded through the ranks, and a narrow passage was at once formed for the chief-engineer and his staff, who now came up from an opposite direction.