"Nay, no'but mysel' left."

Hugh Ritson said no more; a hard smile played on his white face, and at
the next instant he had leaped down on to the bed of sand below.

The man recoiled a pace or two and wrung his hands. Before he was aware
of what had happened, Giles Raisley and the master were standing beside
him.

"Where were old Reuben and his gang stationed?" said Hugh Ritson.

"In the main working; but the water is dammed up; we can never pass."

They returned to the shaft bottom, and walked thence down the cutting
that ran from it at right angles. A light burned far away in the dim
vista of that long dark burrowing.

It was a candle stuck to the rock. The men who worked by it had left it
there when they rushed off for their lives. Through the bottom of this
working there ran a deep trough, but it was now dry.

This was the channel by which the whole pit was drained. Beyond the
light the three men encountered another wall of sand, and from behind it
and through it there came to them the dull thud and the plash of heavy
water.

"If auld Reuben's theer, he's a dead man," said Giles Raisley, and he
turned to go.

Hugh Ritson had struggled to the top of the heap, and was plowing the
sand away from the roof with his hands. In a little while he had forced
an opening, and could see into the dark space beyond. The water had
risen to a reservoir of several feet deep. But it was still four or five
feet from the roof, and over the black, surging, bubbling waves the
imprisoned miner could be seen clinging to a ledge of rock. Half his
body was already immersed. When the candle shot its streak of light
through the aperture of sand, the poor creature uttered a feeble cry.

In another moment the master had wormed his body through the hole and
dropped slowly into the water. Wading breast deep, he reached the
pitman, gave him his hand, and brought him safely through the closing
seam.

When the cage rose to the surface again, bringing back to life and the
world the last of the imprisoned miners, a great cheer broke from many a
lusty throat. Women who had never thought to bless the master, blessed
him now with fervent tongues. Men who had thought little of the courage
that could rest in that slight figure, fell aside at the sense of their
own cowardice. Under the red glow that came from the engine fire many a
hard face melted.

Hugh Ritson saw little of this, and heeded it not at all. He plucked the
candle, still burning,