"Perhaps help will come from outside."
"What help can one hope for, when the mine has entirely collapsed? This gallery, moreover, affords no safety. When the one we have just left falls in, this will not resist long."
There was no answer, and nothing was audible but the crackling of torches and the breath which came in gasps from many chests.
"However, I still have an idea!" said the overseer.
The crowd of miners gathered closely around him again.
"You know that this mine is next to the old abandoned one. Is there among you any one who has worked in it?"
"Only old Ivan."
"There is nothing to be done then. In the first place, he must have forgotten everything; and secondly, one cannot extract a word from him."
During this time old Ivan, who seemed to have no idea that any one was talking of him, was gazing intently into the deep darkness which filled the gallery; he stood erect, his dim eyes were wide open, and a tremor passed over his wrinkled face, the expression of which was constantly changing from one moment to another, and betrayed now terror, now a kind of joy, then surprise. Finally he put his hand before his eyes as though they could not endure a dazzling splendour which issued from that darkness.
"If he wished, he could get us out of this," said a miner. "He worked for a long time in the old mine. But we cannot reckon on him; he is not even able to speak. He has been silent for ten years."