George covered the man's face with a handkerchief as the doctor left the body. "He suffered," he said, under his breath. The doctor heard him, and nodded sadly.
Hark! What was that? A cry—a faint cry!
"They're some of them alive in the end workings," cried Madan, with a sob of joy. "Come on, my lads! come on!"
And the party—all but Mr. Dixon—leaving the dead, pushed on through the foul atmosphere, over heaps of fallen stone and coal, in quest of the living.
"Leave me a man," said Mr. Dixon, detaining the manager a moment. "I stay here. You have enough with you. If I judge right, it all began here."
A collier stayed with him, unwillingly, panting all the time under the emotion of the rescue the man imagined but was not to see.
For while the inspector measured and sketched, far up the heading, in some disused workings off a side-dip or roadway, Burrows was the first to come upon twenty-five men, eighteen of whom were conscious and uninjured. Two of them had strength enough, as they heard the footsteps and shouts approaching, to stagger out into the heading to meet their rescuers. One, a long, thin lad, came forward with leaps and gambols, in spite of his weakness, and fell almost at Tressady's feet. As he recognised the tall man standing above him, his bloodless mouth twitched into a broad grin.
"I say, give us a chance. Take me out—won't you?"
It was Mary Batchelor's grandson. In retribution for the assault on Letty the lad had been sentenced to three weeks' imprisonment, and George had not seen him since. He stooped now, and poured some brandy down the boy's throat. "We'll get you out directly," he said, "as soon as we've looked to the others."
"There's some on 'em not worth takin out," said the boy, clinging to George's leg. "They're dead. Take me out first." Then, with another grin, as George disengaged himself, "Some on em's prayin."