"He has stopped there; I have seen Him!" Ivan stretched out his lean arm in front of him, no one knew why.
The chief miner decided to make a last attempt, "Let us dig, my children! We must make a way for ourselves."
But though he gave the order, he doubted whether there was anything on the other side of the wall but a mass of earth, rocks and ore. Fortunately, just here the passage was a little wider and they could work three abreast. They set to work bravely. However, the flames of the torches exhausted the air and they grew very dim. Their smoke blinded and half-choked the miners, but they persisted and dug huge holes in the earth which was not very hard.
Leaning his back against a wall, Ivan looked straight in front of him. He knew that behind this mass of earth and stones the Apparition which he had known so well in his childhood awaited him.
"We are buried alive!" murmured one of the men.
"Are we making any way?" asked the chief miner, ignoring the remark.
But the men, with perspiration pouring from them, continued their work without replying.
VIII
Half an hour passed in this way. Half-suffocated, some of the miners lay down flat on the ground. Many of them hid their faces as though unwilling to see death face to face—death which seemed so horrible in this black hole so far from the earth's surface. The pickaxes and shovels which were at work on the wall which barred their progress moved but slowly. Finally, the last batch who were working stopped, having no longer the strength to continue. In vain were their chests expanded to take deeper breaths—they were stifled, their throats were contracted, blood rushed to their heads; the air was failing them. The horrible consciousness of certain death was weighing upon them. But in any case the unfortunate men would not have had the strength to escape from this grim cul-de-sac. Their torches, flung to the earth, burnt no longer, but filled with smoke the gloom in which they were plunged.
The chief miner had an attack of vertigo. At his side a young miner began to bleed copiously at the mouth; another was struggling on the ground in an epileptic fit. Some began cursing and quarrelling or accusing old Ivan and the chief miner. One man uttered a cry, for another stretched at his side, had, in his frenzy, seized him by the throat. The chief miner thought he saw red streaks in the black darkness and felt as though something damp and slimy glided over his face. He collected all his remaining strength, rose with difficulty and took up his pickaxe again. His legs tottered. Several times he buried the pick in the black mass of earth which scattered and crumbled beneath his blows; his tool sank under the projecting rock and fragments of damp earth fell with a dull sound. He felt his arms grow numb and threaten to drop the tool.