ays had now elapsed. The food, though economized, was all
gone. Burnley's lamp was flickering, and utter darkness was about to be
added to the horrors which were now beginning to chill the hopes with
which these poor souls had entered on their dire probation. Hope took the
alarm, seized the expiring lamp, trimmed it, and carried it down the one
passage that was open. This time he did not confine his researches to the
part where he could stand upright, but went on his hands and knees down
the newest working. At the end of it he gave a shout of triumph, and in a
few minutes returned to his daughter exhausted, and blackened all over
with coal; but the lamp was now burning brightly in his hand, and round
his neck was tied a can of oil.

"Oh, my poor father," said Grace, "is that all you have discovered?"

"Thank God for it," said Hope. "You little know what it would be to pass
two more days here without light, as well as without food."

* * * * *

The next day was terrible. The violent pangs of hunger began to gnaw like
vultures, and the thirst was still more intolerable; the pangs of hunger
intermitted for hours at a time, and then returned to intermit again:
they exhausted but did not infuriate; but the rage of thirst became
incessant and maddening. Ben Burnley suffered the most from this, and the
wretch came to Hope for consolation.

"Where's the sense of biding here," said he, "to be burned to deeth wi'
drought? Let's flood the mine, and drink or be drooned."

"How can I flood the mine?" said Hope.

"Yow know best, maister," said the man. "Why, how many tons of water did
ye draw from yon tank every day?"

"We conduct about five tons into a pit, and we send about five tons up to
the surface daily."

"Then how much water will there be in the tank now?"

Hope looked at his watch and said, "There was a good deal of water in
the tank when you blew up the mine; there must be about thirty tons
in it now."

"Well, then," said Burnley, "you that knows everything, help me brust the
wall o' tank; it's thin enow."

Hope reflected.

"If we let in the whole body of water," said he, "it would shatter us to
pieces, and crush us against the wall of our prison and drown us before
it ran away through the obstructed passages into the new workings.
Fortunately, we have no pickaxe, and can not be tempted to
self-slaughter."

This silenced Burnley for the day, and he remained sullenly apart; sti