e house of the directors. He forgot that he
had sworn never to hold any communication with Raune. In any case, he
was not to be found. In the next town there was high festival. The
directors of the new railway had given a banquet in honor of the
completion of the tunnel. Raune was there. Ivan, however, met the
second engineer coming out of his house. He was a cool, phlegmatic
man, and consoled himself with the trite reflection that these things
happened everywhere. "The gates must be rebuilt," he said. "The pit
roads must again be re-made, and probably we shall have to sink
another shaft. It will cost a lot of money. _Voila tout!_"

"How many men are below?" asked Ivan.

"Probably about a hundred and fifty."

"Only! And what is to be done for them?"

"It will be a hard job to get them out, for they were at work at the
passage which we were making between the north pit and the east to
improve the ventilation."

"Therefore there is no other entrance to the pit but the one which has
fallen in?"

"No; and the eastern shaft is also in ruins. The flames came from
there; you must have seen them."

"Yes; and I couldn't understand how it was that the second explosion
followed the first after an interval of a few minutes."

"That is easily explained. The communicating wall was already so thin
that the explosion in the north pit blew it into fragments; the gas in
the east pit undoubtedly was not kindled by the flames, for they had
already gone out, but by the strong pressure of the air, which was
heated to fever-heat by the accumulation of coal, and which,
therefore, exploded through the shaft. So it is when you put sand into
the barrel of a gun; the powder bursts the barrel before it throws out
the sand."

It was plain that the engineer took a very cold-blooded view of the
whole affair, and that the design for the new stone gate was a matter
of more interest to him than the hundred and fifty lives which were in
jeopardy. Ivan saw there was little assistance to be got from him.

"Before we can attempt the rescue of the men who are buried in the
pit," he said, "we must pump the gas out of the opening of the cavern.
Where is your air-pump?"

"Up there," returned the engineer, pointing to the sky; "that is to
say, if it hasn't fallen down."

"You have no portable ventilator?"

"We never contemplated the necessity of having one."

"I have brought mine, if we can adjust it."

"I would gladly know how that can be don