a few minutes they waited for them to be resumed; then, flinging
down their tools, and filled with a strange fear, they started through
the maze of galleries towards the slope. On their way they were joined
by Aleck, the blacksmith, and Boodle, his helper. Next they came upon
Paul Evert, standing anxiously by his door. He had become conscious,
without being able to explain how, that something terrible was about to
happen, though he had no idea what form the terror was to take.

Joining the fugitives, he was hobbling along as fast as possible, and
trying to keep pace with their rapid strides, when Monk Tooley stopped,
picked him up, and, holding him like a baby in his strong arms, said,
"We'll get on faster dis way, lad."

Half-way to the slope they met the advancing waters from which Derrick
had just escaped.

The miner who was in advance gave a great cry of "It's a flood, mates,
and it's cut us off. We're all dead men!"

"No we beant!" shouted Monk Tooley. "Up wid ye, men, inter de breast we
just passed."

Running back a few steps to the mouth of a chute he had noticed a moment
before, the miner tossed Paul up into it much in the same way that
Derrick had tossed his oil-can into a similar opening. Springing up
after him, Tooley lent a hand to those behind, and with an almost
supernatural strength dragged one after another of them up bodily beyond
the reach of the flood. Only poor Boodle was caught by it and swept off
his feet; but he clutched the legs of the man ahead of him, and both
were drawn up together. In another minute they too were sealed in behind
an impassable wall of water.

Although they did not know it at the time, they were in a chamber
adjoining that in which Derrick had sought refuge, and were divided from
him only by a single wall of coal a few feet thick. It was a very small
chamber, for the coal found in it proving of an inferior quality, it had
quickly been abandoned. The one on the opposite side of the wall from
them, in which Derrick found himself, was of great extent, being in fact
several breasts or chambers thrown into one by the "robbing out" of
their dividing walls of coal.

"Out wid yer lights, men!" cried Monk Tooley as soon as they had all
been dragged in. "De air's bad enough now, an' de lamps 'll burn de life
outen it. Besides, we'll soon have need of all de ile dat's left in
'em."

The air of that confined space was already heavy and close, with eight
men to breathe it, and ei