“All that dream about the mine, my maid; and I know ’tis coming true. Owen will save David.”
I left Gwen, and went into my own room. On my knees, for a brief instant, I spoke to God. “Oh! God,” I said, “if you are the only help for a dark day, deliver us. Lord, have mercy upon us. Christ, have mercy upon us. Lord, out of the depths, here, we cry to Thee. Lord, deliver those who are appointed to die;” and then, before I rose from my knees, four low words rose from my heart—“Thy will be done;” very low, in the faintest whisper—with the cold dew of agony breaking all over me, these words were wrung from my soul; still I said them. Then I went back to the bank. There was a change there, and some commotion—something had happened. Alas! what? My heart beat audibly. I made my way through the crowd, and found myself close to a group of colliers, who had just come up from the mine. Terrible and ominous words smote on my ear. A new danger had arisen. There were signs of the colliers’ worst enemy—gas. The Davy lamps could not be lit. Again the plug was blown out of the hole, and the roar of air which came through the opening, prevented the loudest voice being heard.
“There is a power in there which would blow us up the heading like dust,” said one.
The peril was too tremendous. Even the bravest of the brave had given way. Dear life was too precious. The men who had toiled, as only heroes could toil, for so many long days and nights, faltered at length. To go forward now, seemed certain and absolute death to both rescuers and rescued.
“The boy is gone,” said Moses Thomas, looking Nan in the face. “He has been nine days now without food.”
“God help them all; they’ll soon be in eternity,” said another miner, wiping the tears from his weatherbeaten face.
“This last has daunted us,” said a third.
“We have done all that men could do,” sighed a fourth, who, worn out from toil, fell half-fainting on the ground.
“To go on now, would be certain death,” said a fifth.
Then there was silence—intense silence; not even the sound of a woman’s sob.