No one now minded these orders. If a door or a gate impeded their progress, Ivan thrust his iron rod through it and soon made a passage, through which his men rushed pell-mell. The miners did not pause to harness any horses to the machines. They harnessed themselves, while others shoved behind, and drove them on over sticks and stones down to the mouth of the pit. Like an army of lunatics the party of rescuers rushed on through the night, making their way as best they could by means of the lanterns fastened to their waistbands. Soon, however, the darkness was again illumined. The forge nearest to the pit, and consequently the most exposed to the fiery heat, blew up suddenly, and the flames from the heating-oven filled the air with a red glow. The miners avoided, however, the direction in which it burned, as it would be impossible to predict the direction which the molten metal would take.
When they reached the pit an awful spectacle presented itself. The ventilation-ovens which were placed over the shaft-mouth were gone. The bricks and tiles were scattered in a thousand directions all over the fields. The large windlass of cast-iron lay on the ground at a considerable distance from its former position, and of the conical, bell-shaped buildings hardly a stone was left. Only one wall was still standing; the iron fasteners hung from its side. The northern entrance to the pit had fallen in. The handsome stone gates lay in ruins. Stones, beams, iron bars, coals were all mixed up together in heterogeneous confusion, as if a volcano had vomited them out.
The air was filled with the cries of weeping women. Hundreds upon hundreds of women and children, probably widows and orphans, held up their hands to heaven and wept. Under their feet their husbands, their fathers, brothers, lovers lay buried, and no one could help them.
More from recklessness than from actual courage some men had already attempted to go down into the pit. They had been at once stunned by the pressure of the gas, and now their comrades, at the risk of their own lives, were trying to drag them out by cords and slings. Already one lay on the grass, while the women stood round him wringing their hands.
Ivan now began to make his plans. "In the first place," he said, "no one is to venture near the pit. Let all wait until I return."
He took his way towards the house of the directors. He forgot that he had sworn never to hold any communication with Rauné. In any case, he was not to be found. In the next town there was high festival. The directors of the new railway had given a banquet in honor of the completion of the tunnel. Rauné was there. Ivan, however, met the second engineer coming out of his house. He was a cool, phlegmatic man, and consoled himself with the trite reflection that these things happened everywhere. "The gates must be rebuilt," he said. "The pit roads must again be re-made, and probably we shall have to sink another shaft. It will cost a lot of money. Voila tout!"
"How many men are below?" asked Ivan.
"Probably about a hundred and fifty."
"Only! And what is to be done for them?"
"It will be a hard job to get them out, for they were at work at the passage which we were making between the north pit and the east to improve the ventilation."