Max was at the time working at a huge turret lathe in one of the turning-shops. Around him were other workmen similarly engaged. Across the room ran numerous great leather driving-bands, running at high speed and driving the great machines with which the place was filled. Apparently the material of one of the driving-bands was faulty, for it suddenly parted, slipped off the driving-wheels, and became entangled in one of the other bands. As this spun round the loose band caught in the machine close by, wrenched it from its foundation and turned it over on its side, pinning down to the floor the workman attending to it.
The man gave a screech as he was borne down, a screech that was broken off short as the heavy machine fell partly upon his neck and chest, choking him with its fell weight. A straggling cry of alarm was raised by the other workmen who witnessed the tragic occurrence, and many pressed forward to his aid. But the great band which had done the mischief was being carried round and round by the driving-band in which it had become entangled, and was viciously flogging the air and floor all about the stricken man.
Some of the men shouted for the engines to be stopped, others ran for something that could be interposed to take the rain of blows from the flying band. Max, however, saw that something more prompt than this was necessary. From the look on the man's face it was clear that if the pressure on his throat and chest were not immediately relaxed he would be choked to death.
Crawling forward beneath the flogging band, and bowing his head to its pitiless flagellations, Max grasped the overturned machine and strove to lift it off the unfortunate man. The weight was altogether too great for him to lift unaided, but he found he could raise it a fraction of an inch and enable the man to gain a little breath.
Holding it thus, Max grimly stood his ground with his head down, his teeth firmly set, and his back arched against the rhythmic rain of blows from the great band. Soon the clothes were flogged from off his back, and the band touched the bare skin. Almost fainting, he held on, for the eyes of the man below him were staring up at him with a look of dumb and frightened entreaty that roused in him all the strength of mind and fixity of purpose he possessed.
The shouts for the engines to be stopped at last prevailed. The bands revolved more slowly, and then ceased altogether. Many willing hands were laid upon the overturned machine, and it was lifted off the prostrate man just as Max's strength gave out, and he sank limply to the floor in a deep swoon.
Neither Max nor the workman was seriously injured. Both had had a severe shock, and Max, in addition, had wounds that, while not dangerous, were extremely painful. After six weeks at Ostend, however, he was himself again, and ready to continue his work in yet another branch of the firm's activities. This time he was to learn the miner's craft, and to see for himself all that appertained to the trade of hewing out coal and iron from the interior of the earth and lifting it to the surface.
On the evening of his return to Liége from Ostend he was sitting in his study alone, reading up the subject that was to be unfolded in actual practice before his gaze on the morrow, when there came a knock at the door.
"Come in," he yelled.
The door opened, and the maid ushered in a middle-aged workman in his Sunday clothes, accompanied by a woman whom Max guessed to be his wife. The man he recognized at once as the workman he had succoured in the accident to the driving-band.