ess, their faces turned to the wall, as
though petrified, and seemed unable to turn their heads. One young
workman, pale with fear, had seized hold of another, who as though
rendered temporarily idiotic, kept on passing his finger over the damp
black wall of the rock.

"There are perhaps still living men below," stammered the overseer in a
low voice. A plaintive groan as though in answer to his question came to
his ears from below the mass of fallen earth. He approached it again,
but the groan was not repeated.

"Now, comrades, we must dig!" he said.

"Come you there, Orefieff Smirnoff! Let us get to work."

So speaking, the overseer seized a miner by the hand, led him before the
mass of collapsed earth and began to work with him. Hardly had they
commenced than a second landslip took place, and the first mass of
earth, pressed by the second which had just fallen, spread in liquid mud
over the gallery. The two men only leaped back just in time.

The overseer could now properly estimate the magnitude of the disaster.
It was evident that they were imprisoned and that no help could reach
them from without. But at any rate they could breathe easily, and the
fact that the air circulated in the gallery much more freely than before
the accident, showed that there was still some means of ventilation
left. They must hasten to take advantage of it. In a few hours the whole
mine would collapse owing to this immense falling-in of earth.

"Come here quickly, comrades!" said the overseer.

In the twinkling of an eye they surrounded him.

"There is only one way of saving ourselves," he said, "and that is by
reaching the old upper gallery. Let those who care for their lives
follow me. Perhaps the shaft is still intact on that side. It ought to
be so, for the air circulates freely. Call those who are working in the
side galleries, and all of you come back here."

Some of the miners, who had preserved more presence of mind than the
rest, rushed to the side galleries to summon their companions.

V

In less than a quarter of an hour, all the survivors of the catastrophe
were collected. The overseer ordered them to provide themselves with
torches, of which a reserve store was always kept in a dry place under
the roof. Then the roll of names was called and seven miners were found
to be missing. They had been buried alive and there was no hope of
finding them.

"Now, listen to me, comrades," said the overseer. "I mean to be obe