"MONITORS" AT WORK—THE PRESSURE OF THE WATER IS SO TERRIFIC THAT THE SOLID ROCK IS LITERALLY WASHED AWAY. OUR ILLUSTRATION IS FROM A DRAWING MADE BY MR. SANDHAM WHILE IN CALIFORNIA.
Exhausted and breathless, he finally reached the short section of the flume, immediately under the outlet of the tunnel, leading to the edge of the precipice. At that instant a dark object shot like a ball from a cannon out of the cavern into the flume, and was carried along and swept over the edge of the cliff. Mr. Sandham discovered afterwards that this was the body of the ill-fated mine-manager. After an interval of a few seconds another body was fired out of the tunnel, and as it swept down the flume towards him Mr. Sandham instinctively reached out his arm to catch it. Next instant his hand was grasped with a convulsive grip, the man's body swung out to the rush of the water, and Mr. Sandham knew that on the strength of his arm depended a human life.
At first he thought he could easily rescue the man by hauling him out of the water, but he speedily found that this was impossible, and that he was not only fighting for a fellow-creature's life but for his own as well. His position on the side of the flume afforded him but a precarious hold, and such was the terrific force of the racing torrent of water as it threatened to tear the drowning miner from his grasp that Mr. Sandham realized that he was not only powerless to pull the man out, but that he himself was in imminent danger of being pulled in. Once at the mercy of the rushing waters, no power on earth could save the pair of them from an awful death.
"NEXT INSTANT HIS HAND WAS GRASPED WITH A CONVULSIVE GRIP."
It is vastly to Mr. Sandham's credit that even in this dire extremity he had no thought of releasing his grip of the man's hand in order to save his own life. At the same time, any such intention on his part would have been futile, for the frenzied miner, with the fear of death strong upon him, held him in such a vice-like grip that it was perfectly clear they must both share the same fate, be it life or death.
The struggle was a grim one, and, putting forth every effort he was capable of, the artist strove hard to pull the man out of danger. His frantic endeavours, however, were unavailing, and he felt himself gradually slipping—drawn irresistibly into the mill-race, which would sweep him and the hapless miner down the flume and hurl them over the precipice to meet a frightful death on the rocks far below. Meanwhile his companion in danger was powerless to help himself, but the agony of mind he endured was vividly portrayed on his drawn and ghastly face as he fought with all his strength against the onrush of the current.
Slipping, slipping, inch by inch, until his body overhung the water to a perilous extent, Mr. Sandham felt instinctively that his strength was failing him. A few seconds more and the end must come! A cold sweat broke out on his brow, and his arm felt as though it was being wrenched from its socket. And then, suddenly, the dreadful strain lessened. The miner, in his frantic struggles, had managed to grasp the side of the flume, and, with this added opposition to the force of the water, Mr. Sandham was able to recover his balance, and at last, with an almost superhuman effort, he dragged the man from the water.
Their peril did not end here, however, for the force he had exerted landed the engineer on top of the artist, and in their nervous excitement the pair clutched each other and rolled over towards the precipice. The rocks sloped sharply down to the edge, and for the second time within the space of a few seconds they were in actual danger of their lives, for the impetus their bodies had acquired carried them down until their heads were actually hanging over the chasm. "There was no earthly reason why we should stop there," says Mr. Sandham, "save that Providence so ordered it." But stop they did, and in a few minutes they were able to crawl back exhausted to a place of safety, where they lay unable to move, speak, or even think for some considerable time. At length the miner sat up and said in a dazed, monotonous voice, "The boss is gone dead, drowned like a rat in a hole. Poor beggar, he was to have gone East to-morrow—he had made his pile. He was going back to his wife and kids. And I should have died with him if you had not caught hold of me." Then his mind seemed to clear and he exclaimed, "Say, stranger, what particular kind of fool are you, anyway? Because, if I had missed my clutch on the flume side when I got my grip on your arm, we would both be down there, ground up into tailings. Shake, stranger."