you can gang up the pit, every yin o' you. I'll soon
blow through the rest of it, and if you are all up by then it will make
for speed in getting the others out. We're going to have a race for it
even though we manage as I'm thinking to. So get out of the way and
don't talk. Again the air's getting too dam'd thick for you all
remaining here. There's hardly as muckle as would keep a canary living,"
and again he called to those on the other side to beware of the shots,
and again ran out to a place of safety while the explosions took place.

Once more the result of the shots was good; but the smoke choked and
blinded them and one man was overcome by the fumes. They carried him out
the road a bit and after he showed signs of coming round, Robert gave
instructions for him to be taken to the surface.

"Oh, Lod, but it's nippin' my e'en," said one as he rubbed his eyes and
blew his nose, sneezed and finally expectorated. "It's as thick as soor
milk, be dam'd!"

"Well, get him up, and I'll away back and redd out the shots and try
and get it through again. The moss is rising quicker noo an' it has only
aboot eighty feet to come."

So back he went among the thick choking volume of smoke, tripping and
stumbling and staggering from side to side as he scrambled on. Would he
be in time to blast the barrier down before the steadily creeping moss
rose to cut off his only avenue of escape?

"My God! What's that?" he asked himself as he paused while a rumble and
crash behind him told him that the old shaft had caved in burying his
comrades in rocks and moss and water.

He ran back but could get no further than within a stoop length of the
old shaft. There were hundreds of tons of debris and all was finally
lost. For the first time terror seized him and he tore desperately at
the bowlders of stone, cutting his fingers and lacerating his body all
over with cuts and bruises. He raved and swore and shouted in
desperation, the sweat streaming from every pore, his eyes wild and
glaring, but he was soon driven back by the moss which was oozing and
percolating through the broken mass of bowlders and gradually it forced
him back with a rush as it burst through with a sudden slushing sound as
if suddenly relieved from a barrier which held it. Back he rushed, his
light again becoming extinguished, the flood pursuing him relentlessly,
the air now so heavy that he could hardly breathe, but groping his way
he reached the first end roadway down w