Both all right, one a trifle sharp of voice, the other nervous.
“Ted? Doctor Boyd?” and so through the list. Everybody safe.
“It is an accidental blast,” said the voice of Allison. He had figured that a concise statement of just what had happened might expedite organisation. “We are below the Farmount Ridge, over a hundred feet deep, and the tube has caved in on us. There must be no waste of exertion. Don’t move until I find what electrical dangers there are.”
They obeyed his admonition not to move, even to the extent of silence; for there was an instinct that Allison might need to hear minutely. He made his way into the front compartment, he called the chief engineer. There was a clanking of the strange looking implements on the floor of the car. A match flared up, and showed the pale face of the engineer bending over.
“No matches,” ordered Allison. “We may need the oxygen.”
He and the engineer made their way back into the parlour compartment. They took up the door of the motor well in the floor, and in a few minutes they replaced it. From the sounds they seemed remarkably clumsy.
“That much is lucky,” commented Allison. “The next thing is to dig.”
They were quiet a moment.
“In front or behind?” wondered the engineer.
Again a pause.