er man for love or money without you ship him a few
hundred miles." And with a frown he waved his arm over the forests to
indicate the barrenness of the land.

III

Scorrier finished his inspection and went on a shooting trip into the
forest. His host met him on his return. "Just look at this!" he said,
holding out a telegram. "Awful, isn't it?" His face expressed a profound
commiseration, almost ludicrously mixed with the ashamed contentment
that men experience at the misfortunes of an enemy.

The telegram, dated the day before, ran thus "Frightful explosion New
Colliery this morning, great loss of life feared."

Scorrier had the bewildered thought: 'Pippin will want me now.'

He took leave of his host, who called after him: "You'd better wait for
a steamer! It's a beastly drive!"

Scorrier shook his head. All night, jolting along a rough track cut
through the forest, he thought of Pippin. The other miseries of this
calamity at present left him cold; he barely thought of the smothered
men; but Pippin's struggle, his lonely struggle with this hydra-headed
monster, touched him very nearly. He fell asleep and dreamed of watching
Pippin slowly strangled by a snake; the agonised, kindly, ironic face
peeping out between two gleaming coils was so horribly real, that he
awoke. It was the moment before dawn: pitch-black branches barred the
sky; with every jolt of the wheels the gleams from the lamps danced,
fantastic and intrusive, round ferns and tree-stems, into the cold heart
of the forest. For an hour or more Scorrier tried to feign sleep, and
hide from the stillness, and overmastering gloom of these great woods.
Then softly a whisper of noises stole forth, a stir of light, and the
whole slow radiance of the morning glory. But it brought no warmth; and
Scorrier wrapped himself closer in his cloak, feeling as though old age
had touched him.

Close on noon he reached the township. Glamour seemed still to hover
over it. He drove on to the mine. The winding-engine was turning,
the pulley at the top of the head-gear whizzing round; nothing looked
unusual. 'Some mistake!' he thought. He drove to the mine buildings,
alighted, and climbed to the shaft head. Instead of the usual rumbling
of the trolleys, the rattle of coal discharged over the screens, there
was silence. Close by, Pippin himself was standing, smirched with dirt.
The cage, coming swift and silent from below, shot open its doors with a
sharp rattle. Scorr