which
it had become entangled, and was viciously flogging the air and floor
all about the stricken man.

Some of the men shouted for the engines to be stopped, others ran for
something that could be interposed to take the rain of blows from the
flying band. Max, however, saw that something more prompt than this was
necessary. From the look on the man's face it was clear that if the
pressure on his throat and chest were not immediately relaxed he would
be choked to death.

Crawling forward beneath the flogging band, and bowing his head to its
pitiless flagellations, Max grasped the overturned machine and strove to
lift it off the unfortunate man. The weight was altogether too great for
him to lift unaided, but he found he could raise it a fraction of an
inch and enable the man to gain a little breath.

Holding it thus, Max grimly stood his ground with his head down, his
teeth firmly set, and his back arched against the rhythmic rain of blows
from the great band. Soon the clothes were flogged from off his back,
and the band touched the bare skin. Almost fainting, he held on, for the
eyes of the man below him were staring up at him with a look of dumb and
frightened entreaty that roused in him all the strength of mind and
fixity of purpose he possessed.

The shouts for the engines to be stopped at last prevailed. The bands
revolved more slowly, and then ceased altogether. Many willing hands
were laid upon the overturned machine, and it was lifted off the
prostrate man just as Max's strength gave out, and he sank limply to the
floor in a deep swoon.

Neither Max nor the workman was seriously injured. Both had had a severe
shock, and Max, in addition, had wounds that, while not dangerous, were
extremely painful. After six weeks at Ostend, however, he was himself
again, and ready to continue his work in yet another branch of the
firm's activities. This time he was to learn the miner's craft, and to
see for himself all that appertained to the trade of hewing out coal and
iron from the interior of the earth and lifting it to the surface.

On the evening of his return to Liege from Ostend he was sitting in his
study alone, reading up the subject that was to be unfolded in actual
practice before his gaze on the morrow, when there came a knock at the
door.

"Come in," he yelled.

The door opened, and the maid ushered in a middle-aged workman in his
Sunday clothes, accompanied by a woman whom Max guessed to be his wife.