carbon would have killed him
instantaneously.

Mechanically he allowed himself to be drawn on. Hell with all its
horrors disclosed itself to his affrighted gaze. His companion seemed
to fear nothing. Was he a human being, or a fiend, who was in reality
possessed of power over the demons of hell? He dragged him to the very
border of the fiery lake; then he took from his shoulder the hose,
which lay in rings and coils, and, opening the mouth of the stop-cock,
directed its force at the bosom of hell. The hose shot forth a flash
like a diamond; the water-spirit fell into the glowing Gehenna.

"Hold tight!" shouted Ivan.

And from the force which the stream from the pipe exercised upon the
burning mass the air was filled with dark clouds of smoke, which
peopled the still brilliantly lighted cavern with strange, unearthly,
spectral-like shadows, which, dissolving suddenly into steam, covered
the two adventurous visitors with a damp moisture. One of them
tottered.

"Fear nothing," calls out the other; "we are quite safe here."

"It is suffocating; I am burning!" cried Spitzhase.

"Do not be afraid; follow me," said Ivan, and drew his trembling
comrade after him over the wet rocks, over the charred, burning
mounds. Every spot where he saw the flames rising he directed the
hose, and a shower of cool, refreshing water fell from the
india-rubber pipe upon the burning, seething demoniacal flames. The
gas hissed, the hot steam boiled round them, the flames, beaten down
in one place, sprang up in another, but on they went. He was afraid of
nothing. "Forward! go on! forward!" The mysterious clouds hovered over
him.

"We are lost!" moaned the other poor mortal, whose fear began to be
uncontrollable. He fell on his knees.

"You of little faith," said the conqueror of hell, "get up. Let us go
back." And he lifted him up, as the Redeemer did Peter on the stormy
Sea of Galilee.

Then he rolled the hose once more round his neck, and took it back to
the suction-pump; this he closed, and then led his comrade again to
the little room where they had put on their equipment.

Spitzhase sank back when he reached this haven. When his helmet was
taken off he panted like a man who was suffocating for want of air.
Ivan looked at him compassionately.

The miners gave each of them a glass of fresh lemonade to drink, and
rubbed their temples with vinegar. They then undressed them to the
skin, put them into a tub of cold water, took them ou