s there were boards
with "No trespassing. No one to pass this way without a written
order."

No one now minded these orders. If a door or a gate impeded their
progress, Ivan thrust his iron rod through it and soon made a passage,
through which his men rushed pell-mell. The miners did not pause to
harness any horses to the machines. They harnessed themselves, while
others shoved behind, and drove them on over sticks and stones down to
the mouth of the pit. Like an army of lunatics the party of rescuers
rushed on through the night, making their way as best they could by
means of the lanterns fastened to their waistbands. Soon, however, the
darkness was again illumined. The forge nearest to the pit, and
consequently the most exposed to the fiery heat, blew up suddenly, and
the flames from the heating-oven filled the air with a red glow. The
miners avoided, however, the direction in which it burned, as it would
be impossible to predicate the direction which the molten metal would
take.

When they reached the pit an awful spectacle presented itself. The
ventilation-ovens which were placed over the shaft-mouth were gone.
The bricks and tiles were scattered in a thousand directions all over
the fields. The large windlass of cast-iron lay on the ground at a
considerable distance from its former position, and of the conical,
bell-shaped buildings hardly a stone was left. Only one wall was still
standing; the iron fasteners hung from its side. The northern entrance
to the pit had fallen in. The handsome stone gates lay in ruins.
Stones, beams, iron bars, coals were all mixed up together in
heterogeneous confusion, as if a volcano had vomited them out.

The air was filled with the cries of weeping women. Hundreds upon
hundreds of women and children, probably widows and orphans, held up
their hands to heaven and wept. Under their feet their husbands, their
fathers, brothers, lovers lay buried, and no one could help them.

More from recklessness than from actual courage some men had already
attempted to go down into the pit. They had been at once stunned by
the pressure of the gas, and now their comrades, at the risk of their
own lives, were trying to drag them out by cords and slings. Already
one lay on the grass, while the women stood round him wringing their
hands.

Ivan now began to make his plans. "In the first place," he said, "no
one is to venture near the pit. Let all wait until I return."

He took his way towards th