A cheer of congratulation and gladness burst from the men. "Cover your heads close," Jack said as he threw himself down; "the explosion is nigh sure to fire the gas."
For a minute a silence as of death reigned in the mine; then there was a sharp cracking explosion, followed—or rather, prolonged—by another like thunder, and, while a flash of fire seemed to surround them, filling the air, firing their clothes, and scorching their limbs, the whole mine shook with a deep continuous roaring. The men knew that the danger was at an end, threw off the covering from their heads, and struck out the fire from their garments. Some were badly burned about the legs, but any word or cry they may have uttered was drowned in the tremendous roar which continued. It was the water from the Logan pit rushing into the Vaughan. For five minutes the noise was like thunder, then, as the pressure from behind decreased, the sound gradually diminished, until, in another five minutes, all was quiet. Then the party rose to their feet. The air in the next stall was clear and fresh, for as the Logan pit had emptied of water, fresh air had of course come down from the surface to take its place.
"We can light our lamps again safely now," Bill Haden said. "We shall want our tools, lads, and the powder; there may be some heavy falls in our way, and we may have hard work yet before we get to the shaft, but the roof rock is strong, so I believe we shall win our way."
"It lies to our right," Jack said. "Like our own, it is at the lower end of the pit, so, as long as we don't mount, we are going right for it."
There were, as Haden had anticipated, many heavy falls of the roof, but the water had swept passages in them, and it was found easier to get along than the colliers had expected. Still it was hard work for men weakened by famine; and it took them five hours of labour clearing away masses of rock, and floundering through black mud, often three feet deep, before they made their way to the bottom of the Logan shaft, and saw the light far above them—the light that at one time they had never expected to see again.
"What o'clock is it now, sir?" Bill Haden asked Mr. Brook, who had from the beginning been the timekeeper of the party.
"Twelve o'clock exactly," he replied. "It is four days and an hour since the pit fired."
"What day is it, sir? for I've lost all count of time."
"Sunday," Mr. Brook said after a moment's thought.
"It could not be better," Bill Haden said; "for there will be thousands of people from all round to visit the mine."