"That's the last chance?" queried Anton, gloomily.
"The very last," said Clem, "we're buried."
CHAPTER III
THE DANGERS OF RESCUE
The midday whistle of the mine had just begun, when a violent blast of air roared up the intake shaft, followed by a portentous—
Cra-a-ack!
A terrific crash rose from the bowels of the earth.
The growling rumble of the underground disaster came rolling upward in throbbing volumes of sound.
The ground trembled, the buildings shook, the lofty skeleton of the pit-head gear wavered as though about to let fall the huge revolving wheels overhead.
From the engine-house, from the pumping-room, from the ventilation building, from the screeners and washers, from the picking-belts, from the loading-yards, from the coking-ovens, from every corner of the vast above-ground works of a modern colliery, the men came running.