"To the boilers!" shouted Mother Brulé. "Put out the fires!"
Levaque, who had found a file, was brandishing it like a dagger, dominating the tumult with a terrible cry:
"Cut the cables! cut the cables!"
Soon they all repeated this; only Étienne and Maheu continued to protest, dazed, and talking in the tumult without obtaining silence. At last the former was able to say:
"But there are men below, mates!"
The noise redoubled and voices arose from all sides:
"So much the worse!—Ought not to go down!—Serve the traitors right!—Yes, yes, let them stay there!—And then, they have the ladders!"
Then, when this idea of the ladders had made them still more obstinate, Étienne saw that he would have to yield. For fear of a greater disaster he hastened towards the engine, wishing at all events to bring the cages up, so that the cables, being cut above the shaft, should not smash them by falling down with their enormous weight. The engine-man had disappeared as well as the few daylight workers; and he took hold of the starting lever, manipulating it while Levaque and two other climbed up the metal scaffold which supported the pulleys. The cages were hardly fixed on the keeps when the strident sound was heard of the file biting into the steel. There was deep silence, and this noise seemed to fill the whole pit; all raised their heads, looking and listening, seized by emotion. In the first rank Maheu felt a fierce joy possess him, as if the teeth of the file would deliver them from misfortune by eating into the cable of one of these dens of wretchedness, into which they would never descend again.
But Mother Brulé had disappeared by the shed stairs still shouting:
"The fires must be put out! To the boilers! to the boilers!"