ng
torrent.

At the first outbreak Derrick and his companions started to run for
their lives down the gangway, but as they reached the door of the
Mollies' meeting-room the torrent was upon them. They had barely time to
spring inside the door and close it as the mad waters swept past. The
door offered but a momentary protection, but ere it had been crushed in
they were climbing the old air-shaft towards the upper level. It was a
desperate undertaking, for the few timber braces left by those who had
cut the shaft were so far apart that often they had to dig little holes
for their hands and feet in the coal of the sides, and thus work their
way slowly and painfully upward. It was their only chance, and they knew
it, for they could hear the detached bits of falling coal and rock
splash into the water as it rose in the shaft behind them.

Finally they reached the top. As they drew themselves wearily, with
almost the last of their strength, over the edge, and lay on the floor
of the gangway, they were filled with new terror at seeing the light
from their lamps reflected in the black waters apparently but a few feet
below them. The water was evidently rising into the upper level, and
before long their present place of refuge would be flooded. Urged by
this peril, they made all possible speed down the gangway into the new
workings at the foot of the slope, where they were confronted by a scene
of the greatest confusion.

The gangways, headings, chambers, and breasts of the lower vein were
already full of the turbid flood, and the few miners who had been at
work down there had barely escaped with their lives into the level
above. Now the water was rising so rapidly that it was evident the upper
level would also be flooded in a few minutes.

In the great chamber at the bottom of the slope that led to the upper
world and safety, miners were flocking from all parts of the workings.
Some were trying to drive frightened mules up the travelling-road;
others were throwing movable property into cars to be drawn up the
slope, and others still were crowding into the same cars, that they too
might reach a place of safety.

The two men who were with Derrick ran to one of these cars, calling on
him to follow them. It was already so crowded that they could not wedge
themselves into it, so they clung on behind, and were thus dragged up
the slope.

That Derrick did not follow them was because he thought of Paul Evert.
Poor little lame