in the vise gripped Grant's abdomen, and he put his face upon the
damp earth and panted. Slowly the three men in the darkness bellied
along until they felt the wall, then in an agony of effort raised
themselves and their burden. Up the wall they climbed to their knees, to
their feet, and met the hands of those inside who took the burden from
them. One, two, three whiffs of clean air as they stuck their heads in
the room, and they were gone--and another two men from the room followed
them. They came upon the first party working their gasping, fainting
course back to the wall, with their load, rolling a man before them. And
they all pulled and tugged and pushed and some leaned heavily upon
others and all looked death squarely in the face and no man whimpered.
The panic was gone; the divine spark that rests in every human soul was
burning, and life was little and cheap in their eyes, compared with the
chance they had to give it for others.

Flicks of fire were swirling down the passage, and the roar of the
flames came nearer and Grant fancied he could hear the crackle of it.
Chopini was on his knees clutching at the crevices in the wall; Hogan
and Dooley dug with their hands into the chinks, then four men were on
their feet, with the burden, and in the blackness, hands within the wall
reached out and took the man from those outside. The hands reached out
and felt other hands and pulled them up, and five, six men stood upon
their feet and were pulled, scrambling and trembling and reeling, into
the room. The blackness outside became a lurid glare. The flickering
lamp inside showed them that one man was outside. Grant Adams stood
faint and trembling, leaning against a wall of the room; the room and
the men whirled about him and he grew sick at the stomach. But with a
powerful effort he gathered himself, and lunged to the hole in the
rising wall. He was trying to pull himself up when Dooley pulled him
down, and went through the hole like a cat. Hogan followed Dooley and
Evans followed Hogan. "Here he is, right at the bottom," called Hogan,
and in an instant the feet of Casper Herdicker, then the sprawling legs,
then the body and then the head with the closed eyes and gaping mouth
came in, and then three men slowly followed him. Grant, revived by the
water from the puddle under him, stood and saw the last man--Dennis
Hogan--crawl in. Then Grant, seeing Hogan's coat was afire, looked out
and saw flames dancing along the timbers,