emed
easier to endure. And still they toiled unrestingly. But their hope was
growing faint. Behind that wall thirty men were lying, hopeless,
starving; and some perhaps were dead already. And it was terrible to
think of the horrors that assailed them, the horror of rising water,
the horror of darkness, and the gnawing pangs of hunger. Among them was
a boy of fourteen. Alec had spoken to him by chance on one of the days
he had recently spent there, and had been amused by his cheeky
brightness. He was a blue-eyed lad with a laughing mouth. It was pitiful
to think that all that joy of life should have been crushed by a blind,
stupid disaster. His father had been killed, and his body, charred and
disfigured, lay in the mortuary. The boy was imprisoned with his
brother, a man older than himself, married, and the father of children.
With angry vehemence Alec set to again. He would not be beaten.

At last they heard sounds, faint and muffled, but unmistakable. At all
events some of them were still alive. The rescuers increased their
efforts. Now it was only a question of hours. They were so near that it
renewed their strength; all fatigue fell from them; it needed but a
little courage.

At last!

With a groan of relief which tried hard to be a cheer, the last barrier
was broken, and the prisoners were saved. They were brought out one by
one, haggard, with sunken eyes that blinked feebly in the sun-light;
their faces were pale with the shadow of death, and they could not stand
on their feet. The bright-eyed boy was carried out in Alec's strong
arms, and he tried to make a jest of it; but the smile on his lips was
changed into a sob, and hiding his face in Alec's breast, he cried from
utter weakness. They carried out his brother, and he was dead. His wife
was waiting for him at the pit's mouth, with her children by her side.

This commonplace incident, briefly referred to in the corner of a
morning paper, made his own affairs strangely unimportant to Alec. Face
to face with the bitter tragedy of women left husbandless, of orphaned
children, and the grim horror of men cut off in the prime of their
manhood, the agitation which his own conduct was causing fell out of
view. He was harassed and anxious. Much business had to be done which
would allow of no delay. It was necessary to make every effort to get
the mine once more into working order; it was necessary to provide for
those who had lost the breadwinner. Alec found himself