"
He took a sweep with his pick, and delivered a horizontal blow at the
clay on that side of the shaft Bartley had told him to attack. His
pickaxe stuck in it, and he extricated it with difficulty.
"Nay, master," cried a miner who had fallen in love with him, "drive thy
pick at t' coal."
Walter then observed that above the clay there was a narrow seam of coal;
he heaved his pick again, but instead of striking it half downward, as he
ought to have done, he delivered a tremendous horizontal blow that made
the coal ring like a church bell, and jarred his own stout arms so
terribly that the pick fell out of his numbed hand.
Then the man who had advised him saw that he was disabled for a time, and
stepped into his place.
But in that short interval an incident occurred so strange and thrilling
that the stout miners uttered treble cries, like women, and then one
mighty "Hah!" burst like a diapason from their manly bosoms.
CHAPTER XXIII.
BURIED ALIVE.--THE THREE DEADLY PERILS.
Seven miners were buried under the ruins of the shaft; but although
masses of coal and clay fell into the hall from the side nearest to
the explosions, and blocked up some of the passages, nobody was
crushed to death there; only the smoke was so stifling that it seemed
impossible to live.
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