gallery, reflecting
the faint lights of the lamps and the vivid flame of the torch which the
overseer of the mine held above his head, while its smoke ascended
towards the high black vaulted roof.

"Lost! We are lost!" some one exclaimed in the crowd with a sob.

Old Ivan pushed his way to the front of the crowd. Neither he nor the
others noticed that the water was flowing round their ankles. They found
themselves confronted by a huge and visibly growing mass, composed of a
mixture of stones from the ruined shaft and fragments of timber-work and
earth. In the midst of all lay upside-down, the bucket which had become
detached from its chain and carried away.

The overseer held his torch near a mass of earth which had assumed a
round shape. It lit up the head of a miner with eyes immensely wide open
whose fixed look seemed to be concentrated on the flame of the torch.
There was something terrible in the sight of those motionless eyelids,
those white teeth gleaming between two torn lips, that deep wound in the
temple from which blood was oozing. A little lower down one saw
projecting from the earth a hand with wide-extended fingers and a broken
wrist. Still lower down could be seen the feet of miners whose bodies
were invisible, buried under the earth. Not a single one moved.

Up to that moment no one had noticed them, but when the torch lit up
this tragic spectacle the whole crowd of miners instinctively started
backward. As he turned round, the overseer only saw faces pale with
fright and shrinking from his torch as though there were something
terrible about it. However, one miner, leaning his hand on the wall,
bent forward, looking attentively at the dead man's face. What did he
see extraordinary in it? He could not have said himself, but it was
plain that he had not the power to turn his terrified eyes away from it.
Another miner approached and touched something with his pickaxe which he
quickly withdrew.

"Look at that piece of bread!" he exclaimed.

The overseer looked in his turn. He saw another hand projecting from
underneath the earth holding a slice of bread sprinkled with coarse
salt in its curved fingers. But the owner of the hand was completely
buried and invisible.

Other miners ran up. Each pushed his way to the front, eager to see,
then having contemplated the huge mass, retired with his face working.
One of them put his hand over his eyes in order not to see the terrible
sight. Others stood motionl