The sad news quickly spread, and numbers of women and children came rushing from the village; wives to ask for their husbands, mothers for their sons, girls for their fathers and brothers, or intended husbands. They kept running about without bonnets or shawls, their hair streaming in the wind, and frantically crying as they stretched out their hands to the banksman and viewers and other officers, “Where are they? where are they? Why don’t they come up?” It would have softened the hardest heart to have seen the grief, the agony of the poor women. No one could answer them. It was not the first time such a thing had happened, even in that pit. They all knew too well the effect of the fire-damp, and still more destructive choke-damp.
“Is no one going down to bring them up?” was the question next asked.
“Yes, some one will go, I dare say, as soon as it’s safe; but it would not do to go yet,” answered the banksman. “Besides, the gear is knocked to pieces.”
This reply only increased the alarm of the poor women, but they were obliged to be content with it.
Dick pressed forward, and asked if any one had come up. No; no one had come up since the morning.
“Then, may I go down?” he asked of one of the viewers.
“You are the lad who went by yourself to look for the boy Adams some years ago, when he was lost, I remember,” answered the viewer. “Yes, you shall go with me presently, if you wish it.”
A fresh corve was fitted, and the gear put in order. The viewer stepped in, there were two other volunteers. Dick followed. Each person had a safety lamp in his hand. They went down very slowly, for it was probable that the shaft itself might be injured. They had not got far when a stream of water, which had burst out of the side, came pouring down on them, and almost filled the corve. The rushing sound, and the force with which the water fell, deafened and confused them. Still they persevered. Hot air, and noxious vapours, and steam, and smoke came rushing up. They went down through it all. Some of their fellow-creatures might be below. They would save them if they could. At last they reached the bottom of the shaft. The furnace was still blazing away. Beyond all was darkness and gloom, though the pale light of their lamps showed them the ruin caused by the explosion.
The viewer shouted out, “Is any one alive?”
They stopped and listened anxiously. There was a faint cry, which came from not far off.