"The engines have refused service for the last hour, and it is only ten minutes since the accident happened; there can be no connection between the two. It is just an hour since your three delegates were taken up. What had happened before that, Hartmann?"
Ulric fell back as if he had received a blow.
"I recalled the order," he gasped, "the moment my father and the rest went down. I came myself to stop it, but they had done it already. I would not have had that, I swear, I would not!"
Arthur turned from him to one of the engineers who now came out.
"Well, how goes it?" he asked, hastily.
The official shook his head.
"The engine does not act. We have not been able to find out the cause, it is certainly not the explosion, for that happened nearly an hour later, and had no effect whatever on the buildings about the shafts. This injury has been done wittingly. We must have overlooked something this morning when we examined the machinery. If we do not manage to get it into working order all access to the mine is cut off from us, and the men below are hopelessly lost, Manager Hartmann with the rest."
He had raised his voice as he spoke the last words and fixed his eyes on Ulric, who, with a deadly pallor on his face, was standing by dumb and motionless; but now he started violently and made a hasty movement forward. Arthur barred the way.
"Where are you going?"
"I must be up and doing!" groaned the young Deputy. "I must help, let me go, Herr Berkow; I must, I tell you."