"
He rushed at Burnley and seized him; but his frenzy was gone, and
Burnley's was upon him; after a short struggle Burnley flung him off with
prodigious power. Hope flew at him again, but incautiously, and the
savage lowering his head, drove it with such fury into Hope's chest that
he sent him to a distance, and laid him flat on his back utterly
breathless. Grace flew to him and raised him.
He was not a man to lose his wits. "To the truck," he gasped, "or we
are lost."
"I'll flood the mine! I'll flood the mine!" yelled Burnley.
Hope made his daughter mount a large fragment of coal we have already
mentioned, and from that she sprang to the truck, and with her excitement
and with her athletic power she raised herself into the full truck, and
even helped her father in after her. But just as she got him on to the
truck, and while he was still only on his knees, that section of the wall
we have called the tank rent and gaped under Burnley's pickaxe, and
presently exploded about six feet from the ground, and a huge volume of
water drove masses of earth and coal before it, and came roaring like a
solid body straight at the coal truck, and drove it against the opposite
wall, smashed the nearest side in, and would have thrown Grace off it
like a feather, but Hope, kneeling and clinging to the side, held her
like a vise.
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