The intense blackness all about dazed him; he retained no sense of direction, scarcely any memory of where he was. His body, bruised and strained, pained him severely; his head throbbed as from fever. Little by little the exhausted breath came back, and with it a slow realization of his situation. Had he killed Burke? He stared down toward the spot where he knew the body lay, but could perceive nothing. The mystery of the dark suddenly unnerved him; he could feel his hands tremble violently as he groped cautiously along the smooth surface of the rock. He experienced a shrinking, nervous dread of coming into contact with that man lying there beneath the black mantle, that hideous, silent form, perhaps done to death by his hands. It was a revolt of the soul. A moment he actually thought he was losing his mind, feverish fancies playing grim tricks before his strained, agonized vision, imagination peopling the black void with a riot of grotesque figures.
He gripped himself slowly and sternly, his jaws set, his tingling nerves mastered by the resolute dominance of an aroused will. Compelling himself to the act, he bent down, feeling along the ground for the foreman's hat having the extinguished lamp fixed on it. He was a long time discovering his object, yet the continued effort brought back a large measure of self-control, and gave birth to a certain clearness of perception. He held the recovered lamp in his hands, leaning against the side of the tunnel, listening. The very intensity of silence seemed to press against him from every direction as though it had weight. He was still breathing heavily, but his strained ears could not distinguish the slightest sound where he knew Burke lay shrouded In the darkness. Nothing reached him to break the dread, horrible silence, excepting that far-off, lonely trickle of dripping water. He hesitated, match in hand, shrinking childishly from the coming revealment of his victim. Yet why should he? Fierce as the struggle had proved, on his part the fight had been entirely one of defence. He had been attacked, and had fought back only in self-preservation. Winston harbored no animosity; the fierceness of actual combat past, he dreaded now beyond expression the thought that through his savagery a human life might have been sacrificed. The tiny flame of the ignited match played across his white face, caught the wick of the lamp, and flared up in faint radiance through the gloom. Burke, huddled into the rock shadow, never stirred, and the anxious engineer bent over his motionless form in a horrid agony of fear. The man rested partially upon one side, his hands still gripped as in struggle, an ugly wound, made by a jagged edge of rock, showing plainly in the side of his head. Blood had flowed freely, crimsoning the stone beneath, but was already congealing amid the thick mass of hair, serving somewhat to conceal the nature of the injury.
Winston, his head lowered upon the other's breast, felt confident he detected breath, even a slight, spasmodic twitching of muscles, and hastily arose to his feet, his mind already aflame with expedients. The foreman yet lived; perhaps would not prove even seriously injured, if assistance only reached him promptly. Yet what could he do? What ought he to attempt doing? In his present physical condition Winston realized the utter impossibility of transporting that burly body; water, indeed, might serve to revive him, yet that faint trickle of falling drops probably came from some distant fault in the rock which would require much patient search to locate. The engineer had assumed grave chances in this venture underground; in this moment of victory he felt little inclination to surrender his information, or to sacrifice himself in any quixotic devotion to his assailant. Yet he must give the fellow a fair chance. There seemed only one course practicable, the despatching to the helpless man's assistance of some among that gang of workmen down in Number One. But could this be accomplished without danger of his own discovery? Without any immediate revealment of his part in the tragedy? First of all, he must make sure regarding his own safety; he must reach the surface before the truth became known.
Almost mechanically he picked up his revolver where it lay glittering upon the floor, and stood staring at that recumbent form, slowly maturing a plan of action. Little by little it assumed shape within his mind. Swanson was the name of the missing miner, the one Burke had gone back to seek,—a Swede beyond doubt, and, from what slight glimpse he had of the fellow before Brown grappled with him in the path above, a sturdily built fellow, awkwardly galled. In all probability such a person would have a deep voice, gruff from the dampness of long working hours below. Well, he might not succeed in duplicating that exactly, but he could imitate Swedish dialect, and, amid the excitement and darkness, trust to luck. Let us see; Burke had surely called one of those miners yonder Ole, another Peterson; it would probably help in throwing the fellows off their guard to hear their own names spoken, and they most naturally would expect Swanson to be with the foreman. It appeared feasible enough, and assuredly was the only plan possible; it must be risked, the earlier the better. The thought never once occurred to him of thus doing injury to a perfectly innocent man.
He looked once more anxiously at the limp figure of the prostrate Burke, and then, holding the lamp out before him, moved cautiously down the passage toward the main tunnel. Partially concealing himself amid the denser shadows behind the displaced falsework, he was enabled to look safely down the opening of Number One, and could perceive numerous dark figures moving about under flickering rays of light, while his ears distinguished a sound of voices between the strokes of the picks. He crept still closer, shadowing his lamp between his hands, and crouching uneasily in the shadows. The group of men nearest him were undoubtedly Swedes, as they were conversing in that language, working with much deliberation in the absence of the boss. Winston rose up, his shadow becoming plainly visible on the rock wall, one hand held before his mouth to better muffle the sound of his voice. The hollow echoing along those underground caverns tended to make all noise unrecognizable.
"Yust two of you fellars bettar come by me, an' gif a leeft," he ventured, doubtfully.
Those nearer faces down the tunnel were turned toward the voice in sudden, bewildered surprise, the lights flickering as the heads uplifted.
"Vas it you, Nels Swanson?"
"Yas, I tank so; I yust want Peterson an' Ole. Meester Burke vas got hurt in the new level, an' I couldn't leeft him alone."
He saw the two start promptly, dropping their picks, their heavy boots crunching along the floor, the flapping hat-brims hiding their eyes and shadowing their faces. For a moment he lingered beside the falsework, permitting the light from his lamp to flicker before them as a beacon; then he hid the tiny flame within his cap, and ran swiftly down the main tunnel. Confident now of Burke's early rescue, he must grasp this opportunity for an immediate escape from the mine. A hundred feet from the foot of the shaft he suddenly came upon the advancing tram-car, a diminutive mule pulling lazily in the rope traces, the humping figure of a boy hanging on behind. The two gazed at each other through the smoke of a sputtering wick.