A Safety Match Part 35

"Would it no be best for us all tae keep silence for a matter o' ten minutes," suggested Wilkie, "and pit up a bit prayer each of his ain, we bein' no all of the same way of thinkin' in these matters? That gate, wi' so many prayers o' different denominations goin' up, yin at least should get gettin' through the roof of the pit. Are ye agreed, chaps?"

"Ay, ay!" said Entwistle.

The others all murmured a.s.sent, save Master Hopper, who shrieked out in sudden fear. The proximity of death had become instantly and dreadfully apparent to him on Mr Wilkie's suggestion. Carthew reached out and pulled him to his side.

"Come over here, by me," he said.

Master Hopper, greatly soothed, crept close, and settled down contentedly enough with an arm round Carthew's shoulders. Presently Carthew heard him repeating The Lord's Prayer to himself in a low and respectful whisper.

The silence lasted longer than ten minutes. For one thing, the supplicants were exhausted in body, soul, and spirit, and their orisons came slowly. For another, there was no need to hurry. For nearly an hour no one spoke.

At length some one sat up in the darkness, and the voice of Atkinson inquired--

"Mr Carthew, sir, I think a song of praise would hearten us all."

"I believe it would," said Carthew. He was not enamoured of the corybantic hymnology of the Salvation Army, but the horror of black darkness was beginning to eat into his soul, and he knew that the others were probably in a worse plight. "What shall we sing?"

"At the meeting where I were saved," said Atkinson deferentially, "we concluded wors.h.i.+p by singing a hymn I have never forgotten since: _Hold the Fort!_"

"That sounds a good one," said Carthew, struggling with an unreasonable sensation of being in the chair at a smoking-concert.

"Does any one else here know _Hold the Fort!_?"

Yes, Entwistle knew it. Master Hopper had heard it. Mr Wilkie had not.

He did not hold with hymns: even paraphrases were not, in his opinion, altogether free from the taint of Popery. If it had been one of the Psalms of David, now! Still, he would join. Denton knew no hymns, but was willing to be instructed in this one.

Atkinson, trembling with gratification, slowly rehea.r.s.ed the words, the others repeating them after him.

"We will sing it now," he said.

He raised the tune in a clear tenor. Most north-countrymen are musicians by instinct. In a few moments this grim prison was flooded by a wave of sonorous melody. The simple, vulgar, taking tune swelled up; the brave homely words rang out, putting new heart into every one.

Each and all joyfully realised that there are worse ways of going to one's death than singing a battle-song composed by Moody and Sankey.

With drawn white faces upturned to the heaven they could not see they sang on, flinging glorious defiance into the very teeth of Death--gentleman and pitman, Church and Chapel, zealot and infidel.

"Last verse again!" commanded Atkinson.

"Wait a moment!" cried Entwistle, starting up.

But no one heard him. The chorus was rolling out once more--

"_Hold the Fort, for I am coming_----"

Tap, tap, tap! Sc.r.a.pe, sc.r.a.pe, sc.r.a.pe! Hammer, hammer, hammer!

The hymn paused, wavered, and stopped dead on the final shout.

"By G.o.d!" screamed a voice--it was Denton's--"here they are!"

Carthew, with Hopper's arms tightening convulsively round him, started up.

"Is it true?" he asked hoa.r.s.ely.

"Ay! Listen! They have found us. They are within a few yards of us,"

said Entwistle.

"_Praise G.o.d, from whom all blessings flow!_" sang Atkinson suddenly and exultantly, and the others joined him.

Entwistle was right. They were found. Reasoned calculation, dogged persistence, and blind indifference to their own safety had brought the search party triumphantly along the mouldering rickety pa.s.sages of Shawcliffe Pit to the nearest point of contact with Number Three in Belton; and _Hold the Fort!_ proceeding from a subterranean cave of harmony not many yards away, had done the rest.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.

THE LAST TO LEAVE.

It was night once more, and the great arc lights snapped and sizzled above the waste-heaps and truck-lines surrounding the head of Belton Pit. But the scene was deserted. The centre of interest had s.h.i.+fted to Shawcliffe, a mile away. Here a vast silent throng of human beings stood expectantly in groups, their faces illuminated by the naphtha flares which had been erected here and there about the long-abandoned pithead.

There was news--tense, thrilling news--and the prospect of more. The ancient shaft had been opened and a bucket and tackle rigged--there was no time to s.h.i.+p a cage--and a search party had gone down at dusk.

Word had shortly been sent up that the road to the south was still open, though the air was foul and the props rickety. Then came a frantic tug at the rope, and a messenger was hauled to the surface, crying aloud that men were alive in Belton Pit. It was hoped, he added, that the search party would reach them by midnight, for the dividing wall was surprisingly thin. Sir John Carr's order was that blankets and stretchers should be prepared; also food and medical comforts, for the prisoners had fasted for something like sixty hours.

With that the messenger had dived below once more, and the game of patience was resumed.

It was past midnight now, and everything was in readiness. On the outskirts of the throng, at the side of the rough and lumpy road, stood a motor-car with two occupants--women. One of them was her ladys.h.i.+p; the other the spectators failed to recognise. But there were rumours about to the effect that she was a visitor to Belton recently arrived from London. Lady Carr had been seen meeting her at the station that afternoon.

The stranger's name, had it been told, would not have conveyed much information to the watchers. It was Nina Tallentyre.

There was a sudden swirl and heave in the crowd. The hand-turned windla.s.s was at work again, and some one was being hauled slowly up the shaft. It was Mr Walker, the manager.

They made a lane for him, until he reached a convenient rostrum formed by an inverted and rusty truck. This he mounted and very briefly told them the news--news which made them laugh foolishly and sob by turns.

There was no cheering: they were past that.

In the excitement the next man who followed him up the shaft pa.s.sed unnoticed. It was Sir John Carr. He saw the hooded motor standing apart, Mr Vick sitting motionless at the wheel. Next moment he was in beside the two women, overalls and all, holding Daphne's hands in a single grimy fist and telling them what we know already.

"Is he _perfectly_ safe?" asked Nina for the tenth time. She did not possess Daphne's aristocratic composure under critical circ.u.mstances.

"Yes--but very weak. I am sending him up second. The first is a pit-boy. When Carthew arrives you had better put him in the motor and take him straight home."

"Jack!" said Daphne.

She slipped out of the car and accompanied her husband into the darkness outside the radius of flaring lights.

"Are you going down again?" she asked.

"I am."