It was a moment of despairing dejection, coming naturally enough to one who had striven on and on, and all in vain, against the curse of a past in which he himself had not been to blame, except in so far as he had held himself aloof from the duties of it. Now the fatal inheritance was his alone, and the weight of it almost crushed him to the earth.
The accusing words against his father, which had escaped his lips, had been silenced in the self-same moment by the terrible suggestions he had listened to respecting the manner of that father's death. Yet to his predecessor was it solely due that he, the son, was now driven to the last terrible necessity, that, with ruin staring him in the face, deserted by his wife, forsaken by all his former friends, he was forced to resort to the only means which might yet save himself and all that he could still call his own from an enmity sown and nourished for many a long year, and whose fruits he was now compelled to taste. Arthur closed his eyes and leaned his head back on the arm-chair. He was worn out.
Eugénie had noiselessly left her hiding-place and had stepped on to the threshold. Forgotten now the peril she had passed through, forgotten the accusations she had heard with such feelings of horror, forgotten even the man on whom they rested and all that had reference to him.
Now that she was so near her husband, she saw and thought of nothing but him. The veil, which had so long divided them, would now be torn away. All would be made clear, and yet she hesitated and trembled at the coming decision as though sentence of death were about to be passed on her.
If she had been mistaken, if she were not received as she had hoped to be, as, after the sacrifice she had wrung from her pride, she felt she must be received .... The blood rushed violently to the young wife's heart, and it throbbed in an agony of suspense. Everything for her hung on the next minute.
"Arthur!" she said very softly.
He started up, as though he had heard a voice from the dead, and looked around him. There in the doorway, close to the spot where she had bade him farewell for ever, stood his wife.
In that first moment of recognition all consideration and reflection vanished; he rushed towards her and the cry of joy which was wrung from his lips, the radiant brightness of his eyes, revealed all that up to this hour had been disavowed by the self-restraint of months.
"Eugénie!"
She breathed freely, as though a mountain load had been lifted from her heart. The look, the tone with which he spoke her name gave her at last the long questioned certainty, and even though he stopped short in his hasty advance towards her, trying, as a protection against himself, it seemed, to take up the old mask once more and veiling that tell-tale glance, it was too late, she had seen too much!
"Where do you come from?" he asked at length, recovering himself with difficulty, "so suddenly, so unexpectedly, and how did you get up to the house? The works are in open revolt, you cannot possibly have passed by them."
Eugénie drew nearer slowly.
"I only arrived a few minutes ago. I had indeed to force my way through. Do not ask me how, at present, enough that I forced it. I wanted to be with you before danger reached you."
Arthur tried to turn from her.
"What does this mean, Eugénie? Why do you speak in that tone? Conrad has been making you anxious, though I entreated him not, though I expressly forbade him to do so. I want no sacrifice made from generosity or from a sense of duty. You know it."
"Yes, I know it," she returned steadily. "You sent me from you once before with those words. You could not forgive me that I had once done you a wrong, and in revenging yourself for it, you nearly sacrificed both yourself and me. Arthur, who was the hardest, the unkindest, of us two?"
"It was not revenge," he said in a low voice. "I set you free, you wished it yourself."
Eugénie was standing quite close to him now. The word, which once no consideration on earth would ever have forced from her lips, was so easy to speak now that she knew herself to be beloved. She raised full upon him her dark eyes, all dewy with tears.
"And if I tell my husband that I will have no freedom away from him, that I have come back to share with him whatever may befall us both, that I--that I have learnt to love him, will he once more tell me to go?"
She received no answer, at least not in words, but already she was in his arms, and they held her in an embrace so close and warm, it seemed as though they would never again give up the prize they had won at last.
As she lay there and felt the passionate caresses he showered upon her, she knew how cruel a blow her loss must have been, and all that her return was to him at a moment like the present. She saw a radiance in those great brown eyes, such as she had never before seen there, not even during those old bright lightning-like flashes.
The spell was broken. The world so long lying perdu had risen from its depths up to the broad light of day, and some instinct must have revealed to the young wife all the treasures that world held for her, for she laid her head upon her husband's breast, yielding herself up to him in fullest trust and confidence, as he bent over her whispering,
"My wife! my treasure!"
Through the open window came a breezy rustling greeting from the green wooded heights up yonder. Those forest-voices must have their say and mingle their whispers in the new-found bliss. Had they not helped to create it? Long ago they had understood, these two, before the two had learnt to understand themselves, at a time when they stood face to face in haughty contest, and spoke the word of separation in the very moment when their hearts were meeting.
But the contention and pride of the children of men avail but little when, with their loves and hopes, they come within the magic circle traced by the spirit of the mountains, as, amid the surging mists, he travels through his dominions in that first early hour of spring--and that which meets then, will cleave together for evermore!
The day which had begun so stormily for the Berkow colony ended in comparative quiet, such as could hardly have been looked for after the scenes of the morning. Any one unacquainted with the situation might have taken the calm, which towards evening fell upon the works and their neighbourhood, for the most peaceful repose. But it was only a truce, and, after this pause of a moment, the storm would break forth again with redoubled fury.
In the Manager's dwelling there reigned a brooding, oppressive silence, covering so much that was disastrous. The old man sat dumb in his arm-chair by the stove. Martha went about the room, making work for herself and casting an occasional glance at Ulric, who, with folded arms, paced gloomily and silently up and down the little space. No one spoke to him, and he spoke to no one.
The old confidential footing, which, owing to the young Deputy's unmanageable conduct, had, it is true, often enough led to violent quarrels, but as often to reconciliation afterwards, had long ago ceased. Ulric ruled at home as absolutely as he ruled abroad among his partisans; even his father ventured no longer to oppose him, but, here as there, he governed only through fear. There was no talk now of love or confidence.
The silence had lasted long, and would probably have lasted longer if Lawrence had not come in. Martha, looking through the window, saw him approach and went to open the door for him.
The relations between these young engaged people seemed strangely cold. In spite of that day's grave work, which had little in common with tender passages, the girl's welcome might have been warmer; perhaps at so troubled a moment it ought to have been warmer, or so the young miner seemed to feel, for he looked hurt, and broke off in the middle of his cordial little speech. Martha did not notice it, however, and he turned hastily from her towards Ulric.
"Well?" asked the latter, pausing in his walk.
Lawrence shrugged his shoulders.
"Just as I told you. To-morrow four hundred of them will report themselves for work, and as many more are hesitating and balancing what to do. You are hardly sure of half now."
This time Ulric did not exclaim violently as was his custom on such occasions. The savage irritation he had shown in the morning about the desertion of a comparatively small number of his followers contrasted oddly with his present almost unnatural calm.
"Hardly half now," he repeated. "And how long will they hold out?"
Lawrence evaded an answer.
"All the younger men are with you. They have been on your side from the first, and they will stand by you still even if there should be trouble at the shafts again to-morrow. Ulric, will you really go such lengths as that?"
"He will go all lengths," said the Manager, standing up. "He will go on until they all drop off from him one by one and he remains quite alone. I told you before, you will never succeed with your senseless demands and your senseless hatred. It was fitting enough towards the father; but in truth and conscience the son has not deserved it. What he offered you was sufficient; I ought to know after all, for I have worked in the mines in my time, and I can feel for my fellows as well as another.
"Most of them would have gladly accepted it too, but they were cried down and threatened, until not a man among them dared move a finger, just because Ulric had set his mind on getting more than was possible. Now it has been going on for weeks, with all the misery and care and want, and it has all been in vain. There comes a day at last when the starving wife and children at home have to be thought of before everything, and that day we have reached now. You have brought us to it, Ulric, and nobody but you; now let there be an end of it." The old man had risen; as he spoke, he fixed on his son a look which had something of menace in it, but even this reproach, which at another time would have aroused Ulric to angry defiance, now failed to ruffle his gloomy composure.
"There is no arguing with you, father," he said coldly. "I have known that a long while. You are satisfied if you can eat your bit of dry bread in peace, and anything beyond that seems foolishness or a crime to you. I have staked everything on a throw. I thought to succeed, and I should have succeeded if that Berkow had not stood up all at once and shown us a front of iron. If we fail--well, Karl says, I am sure still of half the men, and with them I will let him see what it costs to get the better of us. He shall pay dearly enough for his victory."
The Manager looked at Lawrence, who was standing by with bowed head taking no part in the discussion, and then again at his son.
"Look to it first whether the half will remain true to you, if the master interferes in the matter again as he did this morning. That lost you the other half, Ulric. Do you think it has no effect upon them that he should behave as he has from the very first day you began to threaten him? Do you think they don't feel, all of them, that he is their match and yours too, and that he is able to hold them in hand himself, if ever it should chance that you cease to be their master? The first set took to work again this morning; they would have done it three weeks ago if they had dared. Now that they have made a beginning, there will be no stopping them any more."
"You may be right, father," said Ulric in a low hollow voice, "there may be no stopping them now. I have built on them as on a rock, and they are but thin sand running through my fingers. Berkow has learnt how to draw the cowards to him with his fine speeches and cursed way of stepping in among them, as if there were no stones to fly at his head and no mallets to be used, if necessary, on the person of our respected lord and master. That is just why they dare not attack him. I know why he carried his head so high to-day all of a sudden, why he came into the midst of all the uproar, looking as if success and happiness could never fail him more, and I know too that they are coming back to him. I myself guided them to his arms this morning."
The last words were lost in the banging to of the door which he had opened while speaking, and no one present understood them. Ulric stepped out into the open air and threw himself down on a bench.
The unnatural calm, which to-day pervaded his whole being, was almost alarming in a man accustomed to give the reins to his wild passionate nature. Whether the defection of his comrades had wounded him to the core, or whether some other feeling had been at work within him since the morning, it seemed that the proud certainty of victory, which he had shown even in those hours, was paralysed now, if not destroyed.
Past the little garden flowed the broad brook which, farther on in its course, served to turn the wheels now standing idle. It was a mischievous ill-regulated stream, this brook, it had nothing of the murmuring and silver-clear twinkling of its companions up in the hills, yet it too came from out of the mountain depths, close to where the shafts were situated. How often had it tried to draw harmless little children at play into its eddying course, so as, at least, to frighten and torment, though it dared not injure or kill, and so to revenge itself for having been made to lend its aid to man's machinery and labour.
The dark rapid flood looked weird in the last glimmer of the evening light, and still more uncanny was the brawling of its waters as it flowed by, hissing at times and babbling, full of scoff and of mischief, as though down below in the depths of the mountains it had learnt the tricks of the earth-gnome, how he weaves his toils round the men who are ever trying to drag his treasures from him, and how he has claimed as his due many a young warm life and buried it down in the regions of endless night.
There was nothing holy in its murmuring flow, and this was no holy hour in which its sound ascended to the young miner's ear as he sat there motionless, staring down before him as though harkening to some mysterious voice.
He had sat there for some time when he heard a step approaching, and directly afterwards Martha stood before him.
"What do you want?" asked Ulric, never turning his eyes from the stream.
"I wanted to see where you were staying all this while, Ulric," said she with repressed anxiety in her tone.
"Where I was staying? Your sweetheart is there within, keep your care for him. Let me be where I am."
"Karl has gone again," said Martha hastily, "and he knows well enough that it can do him no harm if I talk a bit with you."
Ulric turned round and looked at her. He seemed glad to tear himself from the thoughts which that brawling voice below had awakened in him.
"Listen, Martha; Karl puts up with more from you than any one else would stand. I would not suffer you to meet me in that manner. You should not have said 'yes,' if you had no heart for him."
The girl turned away almost angrily.
"He knows I have no heart for him. I told him so when we gave each other our word. He would have me consent. I can't alter it, at least not now; perhaps I shall learn to after the wedding."
"Perhaps!" said Ulric, with a sarcasm so deep and cutting as to seem inapplicable to the words he spoke. "Perhaps! So much is learnt after the wedding, with others at least, and why not with you?"
He looked down again at the dark flowing water, as if he could not tear himself away from it. There below was the same low plash and murmur, whispering to him only evil, evil thoughts.
Martha still stood a few paces off. That shyness and dread of him which, since the "accident," had been felt by all about him, had fettered her also. For weeks she had avoided every meeting, all contact with him, but to-day the old inclination had sprung up again strong within her, and had drawn her forcibly to the spot where he was. She was not deceived by that strange calm, she guessed what lay behind it.
"You cannot get over the desertion of the men?" she asked gently. "But half of them are with you still, and Karl will stand by you to the last minute."
Ulric smiled contemptuously.
"To-day there are still half, to-morrow there will be a quarter, and the day after---- Don't talk of it, Martha! As for Lawrence, he has never had more than half a heart for it. He has stood by me and not by the cause; by me, because I was his friend, and there will soon be an end of his friendship too. He cares far too much for you to have any very honest liking for me now."
The girl turned to him with a hasty gesture.
"Ulric!"
"Well, there is nothing in that to hurt your feelings. You would not have me when I asked you to be my wife. If you had, it would have been better in many ways."
"It would not have been better," said the girl decidedly. "I am not made of stuff to endure all that Karl puts up with so patiently from day to day, and things would have been between you and me much as they are now between me and him, only I should have been the one who had all to bear. I never had the least bit of your heart, your love was given elsewhere, in quite a different place."
There was bitter reproach in her words, but even this allusion could not rouse Ulric to-day. He was standing up now and gazing over towards the park as it lay shadowy in the distance, searching, as it were, for something between the trees.
"You mean I might have done better nearer at home, if I had sought for it, and you are right; but this is not a thing to be sought after, Martha. It seizes you all at once, and never looses you again while there is breath in your body. I have learnt to know it I have given you pain, my girl; now for the first time I know how much. But, believe me, no blessing comes with such love; it gives one more to suffer than the bitterest hate."
Words like these, nearly approaching to a prayer for forgiveness, sounded strangely from Ulric Hartmann's lips; he was little used to ask whether he gave pain or not. There was about him a sort of dull resignation quite foreign to his nature, and the grief which moved him now was all the more profound that it showed itself by no passionate outburst. Martha forgot her repugnance and her fear, and went close up to his side.
"What ails you, Ulric? You are so strange to-day. I have never seen you like this. What is the matter?"
He pushed the curly hair from his brow, and leaned up against the wooden gate.
"I don't know. Something has been weighing on me all day long. I can't shake it off, and it takes my strength from me. I want it for to-morrow, but directly I try to think, all grows black and dark before me, as if there lay nothing more beyond, as if to-morrow all would be at an end--all!"
Ulric started up suddenly with a dash of his old spirit.
"Absurd nonsense! I think the water down there has bewitched me with its confounded brawl. I have so much time just now to be listening to it, really! Good-bye."
He turned to go, but the girl held him back anxiously.
"Where are you going? To see the men?"
"No, I am going first on an errand of my own. Good-bye."
"Ulric, I implore you, stay!"
But the young miner's short-lived softened mood was over already. He tore himself free impatiently.
"Let me go. I have no time for talk--another time!"
He pushed open the garden gate, and, setting off in the direction of the park, soon disappeared in the growing darkness.
Martha stood with folded hands, looking after him. Wounded feeling and bitter pain strove together in her countenance, but the pain gained the upper hand.
"No blessing comes with such a love."
The words found an echo in her heart. She felt that there was no blessing on hers either.
Meanwhile Eugénie Berkow sat alone in her husband's study. There had been little opportunity as yet for these two to enjoy their newly-won felicity. Twice had Arthur been compelled to leave her; in the morning when he had thrown himself into the thick of the tumult and quelled it for the time being, and now again when he had been called away to a conference with the officials.
But, in spite of her anxiety about him and of the dangerous situation in which they were placed, the young wife's face beamed with a reflection of that deep inward happiness which, gained at the cost of many an arduous struggle, was no longer at the mercy of outward storms. She was with her husband, at his side, under his protection, and Arthur was, it seemed, a man able to make his wife forget all else in that one fact.
Suddenly a door was opened, and steps resounded in the adjoining room. Eugénie rose to meet the newcomer, whom she naturally took for her husband, but her first feeling of surprise at seeing a stranger gave way to one of terror as she recognised Ulric Hartmann.
He was startled too at seeing her, and stood still in some embarrassment.
"Ah, it is you, my lady! I was looking for Herr Berkow."
"He is not here, I am expecting him," she answered quickly, in a trembling voice.
She knew what a source of danger this man had been to Arthur, what a part he had played here on the works, yet she had not hesitated to trust herself to his protection, when that morning it had seemed her only chance of reaching the house. Between the morning and evening, however, had come the hour in which she had stood by and listened to the accusations brought against him by the chief-engineer.
They were based on suspicion alone, but even the suspicion of so dastardly and perfidious an act as the assassination of a defenceless man is something terrible, and she had shuddered with horror at the thought of it. She could trust herself to the openly-declared and ruthless enemy of her husband, but she shrank back from the hand which was possibly dyed with the blood of her husband's father.
Ulric noticed the movement only too plainly. He still stood on the threshold, but in his voice there was a tone of unmistakable scorn.
"I have alarmed you by coming. It was not my fault that I had not myself announced. You are ill served, my lady. Neither on the stairs nor in the corridors did I meet with one of your lacqueys. I should very likely have thrust them out of my way, if they had refused me admittance, but the noise of it would have been a sort of announcement in itself."
Eugénie knew that he could have come in without hindrance. The two servants were, by Arthur's express command, stationed in the ante-room leading to her own apartments. In the excited state of men's minds, now that every restraint was loosed and all order overthrown, it might be that some would so far profit by the general license, as to attack, or at least to force their way into, the house.
Anxiety and an uneasy restlessness had driven Eugénie over to her husband's rooms. They were situated in another wing, and from their windows she would see him come, but the entrance to them was unguarded and she was there quite alone.
"What do you want, Hartmann?" she asked, summoning up her courage. "After all that has happened, I did not think you would attempt to enter our house again and to gain access to Herr Berkow's private rooms. You know that he cannot receive you now."
"It was just on that account I was looking for him. I have a few words to say to him. I thought I should find him alone. It was not you I was seeking, my lady."
He stepped a little nearer to her as he said these words. Eugénie retreated involuntarily; he laughed out with a bitter laugh.
"What a change a few hours may make! This morning you were begging for my protection and leaning on my arm as I led you through all the noise out there. Now, you fly from me as if your life were not safe when I am by. Herr Berkow has used his time well, he has painted me in the colours of a robber and a murderer, has he not?"
The young wife's delicate eyebrows contracted angrily, as, mastering her agitation, she replied shortly and sternly,
"Leave me! my husband is not here, you see yourself, and if he were to come now, I should hardly leave you alone with him."
"Why not?" asked Ulric slowly, but lowering darkly at her. "Why not?" he repeated more vehemently as she remained silent.
Eugénie's fearless nature had often led her into acts of imprudence. She did not reflect now on the possible consequences of her words, as, returning his gaze steadfastly, she hazarded the dangerous answer,
"Because your company has been fatal to one Berkow already."
Hartmann started, and turned very pale. For one moment it seemed that he would break out with all his old violence, but no! his features still wore that rigid calm, and he spoke in the same dull under-tone he had used throughout the interview.
"So that was it? Truly, I might have known it would find its way to you at last."
Eugénie looked on in surprise. She had not expected such calmness as this, it struck her as unnatural, yet she was stimulated by it to a still greater venture. She had that morning tested her power and found it to be great.
If it were only for Arthur's sake she longed for a certainty as to this man who stood opposed to him in the fight, and she felt that though the truth should be denied to all the world beside, it would not be so to her.
"You know what I mean then?" she began again. "You understand to what I allude? Hartmann, can you solemnly declare the reports connected with that unhappy hour to be false?"
He crossed his arms on his breast, and looked moodily to the ground.
"If I were to do so would you believe me?"
Eugénie was silent
"Would you believe me?" he asked again, in a tone as though life or death hung on her answer.
She let her eyes rest for a moment on his face. It was fully turned towards her now, and she saw that it was ashy pale, and, like his voice, betrayed an agonised tension of feeling.
"You might be capable of a crime, I think, if you were stung to passion. I do not think you are capable of a lie."
Ulric's mighty chest heaved with a deep sigh of relief. As though completely to re-assure her, he stepped back again away from her.
"Ask me what you please, my lady, I will answer you."
She trembled a little and leaned against the back of the sofa. It was a dangerous colloquy, she felt, to hold with such a man, but still she put the all important question.
"They tell my husband that it was not by mere accident the ropes broke on that fatal day. How was it, Hartmann?"
"It was accident or something better, if you will, justice perhaps. Our employer had caused alterations to be made in the pumps and lifting-machine, just what was indispensable to keep them working, but nothing to ensure safety. It was the same in this as in everything else. What did it matter if a few hundred miners, constantly going up and down, were every day brought in danger of their lives? Double and treble the loads were lifted, the most outrageous weights were raised, and at last the weights did their work, only this time the victim was not one of the men, but the master himself. It was no man's hand, my lady, which severed the ropes just at the moment when they were bearing him up, and mine least of all. I saw the danger coming, we had just reached the last stage but one. I risked the leap and"----
"You thrust him?" said Eugénie breathlessly, as he paused.
"No, I only let him go. I could have saved him if I would. Half a minute would have been sufficient. I must have risked my own life, it is true; he might have dragged me down with him, but for any one among the men, for any of the officials even, I should have risked it; for that man I could not! In that instant the thought rushed through my head of all the evil he had done us, that the fate now threatening him was only what he had exposed us to, day by day, for nothing but to save money, and that I would not meddle in the matter if for once Providence chose to be just. I did not move a hand, in spite of his cries. Next minute it was too late; the cage had been dashed below and he with it."
Hartmann was silent. Eugénie looked up at him half in pity, half in horror. She knew well enough that the accusations he had heaped on the dead man were merited. Even she, however, would, in a moment of peril, have stretched forth her hand to save the hated Berkow, but the man opposite her had learnt neither to forgive nor forget. He stood quietly by, and saw his enemy perish before his eyes.
"You have told me the whole truth, Hartmann? On your word of honour?"
"On my word of honour."
His eyes met hers without flinching. There was no doubt now in her mind, and she answered reproachfully.
"And why did you not clear up the error? Why did you not speak to the others as you have done to me?"
A scornful look passed over his face.
"Because not one of them would have believed me. Not a single one, not even my own father. He is right. I have been wild and reckless all my life, flinging down everything that stood in my way, and not caring for what others said to me. I have had to pay for it now. They all knew that I hated the man, and the accident happened when I was by, so I must have been the cause of it, there could be no doubt as to that. My own father told me so to my face, just because I could not say 'yes' at once, when he asked me if I was in no way to blame for Berkow's death.
"I should only have had to stretch out my arm to save him and I had not done it--because I could not say yes at once, he would not listen to me any more. He would not have believed me, if I had sworn it to him. Then I tried here and there among my mates. They did not contradict me, but I saw in their faces that they took me for a liar. I was not going to beg and pray them to believe me, so I let the thing go as it would. I had had enough of their friendship and companionship. If I had been brought into court and had found that matters were going against me, I should have spoken out, but it is a question if any one there would have believed what I said."
Eugénie shook her head.
"You should have made them believe you, Hartmann; you could have done it, if you had tried in earnest, but your pride would not suffer it. You met suspicion with contempt, and that was the very way to strengthen it. Now you have an ill name on all the works, with the officials and with my husband."
"What do I care for Herr Berkow?" he broke in roughly, "what do I care for any of them? It is all the same to me whether they condemn me or not, but I could not bear that you should turn from me in loathing, and you believe me now, I see it in your eyes. The rest is all one to me."
"I do believe you," said Eugénie earnestly, "and my husband's mind, at least, shall be cleared of those worst suspicions. If you failed to save, where rescue was possible, it is not for us to judge you. You must answer for it to your own conscience, but Arthur shall not think that it is his father's murderer who stands opposed to him. It is too late now for a reconciliation, you have gone too far for that. It is only within the last few hours that I have learnt all that has happened, all that yet may happen, if the attack on the shafts is renewed to-morrow. Hartmann," she was imprudent enough to go right up to him and to lay her hand on his arm. "Hartmann, we are on the verge of a frightful catastrophe. You have compelled my husband to protect himself and those belonging to him, to prepare himself for whatever may befall, and he is determined to do it. If blood is shed, must needs be shed, to-morrow, think on whose head it will be?"
Her close vicinity, the touch of her hand on his arm, were not without effect on Ulric, but this time they worked no good. The dull quiet tone in which he had spoken hitherto was changed now; his voice grew sharper and louder, as he replied:
"On mine, you mean? Take care, my lady, you may have to suffer too, if for instance, some one you are very fond of should be made to answer for it. Herr Berkow will not stay securely here at home when there is fighting going on outside. I know that, and I know too whom I shall seek out first when once the battle is fairly on."
Eugénie had long ago withdrawn her hand, now she moved away from him, warned by that tone and look. He was still but as a half-tamed tiger, obeying her voice one minute, but ready perhaps the next to rise up against her with all the old fury of his savage nature. That minute seemed to be at hand. His look had menace in it even to her.
"Hartmann, you are speaking to your employer's wife," she said, making a vain attempt to recall him to his senses.
"My employer!" cried he in scorn. "There is no question of my employer here. I have only to do with him when I am at the head of my men. It is Arthur Berkow I hate, because you are his wife, because you love him, and I ... I love you, Eugénie more than any one in the whole wide world. Do not shrink from me so in horror. You must have known it long ago.
"It has mastered me each time I have come near you. I have kept it down and tried to crush it by force, but it was of no use. It is of no use now either, though to-day again I have had to learn the old lesson that like cleaves to like, and that nothing is left for such as we are but disdain and just a haughty shrug of contempt, even though we should have risked our lives in your service. But next time there is a life to be lost, I shall not be the one to offer myself up madly, as I did on the day of your home-coming, by rushing under your horses' hoofs. Next time the peril shall be another's, not mine. I have hated one Berkow to the death already; it seemed to me then I never could hate any one worse, but I know better now. He did not make a murderer of me; but there is one man, and only one in the world, who could! I did the father no hurt, but, if ever I find myself so, man to man, with the son, then it shall be he or I ... or, if it must be, both!"
It was a terrible moment. The man's frenzied passion had burst all bounds and broken loose in a wild torrent which nothing now could stem or stay. Eugénie saw that no words would avail her at the present crisis, she understood that her power was at an end. She could not escape, he had placed himself between her and the door, but she ran to the bell and pulled it with all the force at her command. The servants were upstairs at the other side of the house, still it was just possible the sound might reach their ears.
Hartmann had followed her; seizing her hand, he would have dragged it from the bell rope, but at that moment he was himself thrust back by an arm to which indignation lent such strength that it flung his giant form aside as though he had been a child. Arthur stood between them. With a cry of joy and yet of mortal fear, Eugénie rushed to her husband; she knew what would come now.
Ulric recovered himself quickly and no sound passed his lips, but his face was so distorted by rage as to be hardly recognisable. There came a look in his eye, as he turned and faced his enemy, which foreboded that enemy's immediate destruction; but Arthur, with quick presence of mind, tore down one of the pistols which hung over his writing-table, and throwing his left arm round his wife, he levelled the weapon at the intruder.
"Back, Hartmann! Do not dare to come nearer. One step forwards towards my wife, one single step, and I stretch you on the ground."
The threat took effect. Almost blinded by passion as he was, Ulric saw the barrel pointed at him with a firm and sure aim, saw too that the hand which held it did not tremble; at the second step he took forward the bullet would strike him, and his foe would remain victor. He clenched his fist and gnashed his teeth in his rage that a like weapon was wanting to him.
"I have no pistols," said he, "or we should meet here on equal terms, as we never have met yet. You are better provided than I. I have nothing but my fists to set against your bullets, it is easy to see who would get the best of it."
Arthur kept his eyes steadily fixed upon him. "You have taken care, Hartmann, that we should always have at hand arms ready for use. I shall protect my house and my wife even at the cost of a bullet. Back, I repeat."
For one second the two looked each other full in the face, as on that first occasion, so pregnant with consequences, when they had measured each other's strength: now, as then, victory declared itself for the young master, though, in the pass they had now reached, other means of coercion had been needed than the look of his undaunted eyes. He stood motionless, his finger ready to press the trigger, following every movement of his foe, until the latter receded.
"I have never set much store by my life," said Ulric. "I should have thought you both might have known that, but I am not going to let myself be shot down at your door. I have accounts to settle with you. You need not tremble so, my lady, you are in his arms, and he is safe, for the present at least, though we have not finished with each other yet. You stand there together as if nothing could tear you apart, as if you were bound one to the other for ever and ever; but my time will come yet, and then you shall have cause to remember me."
So saying, he went; his departing steps echoing through the adjoining room, then more faintly in the ante-chamber, until at last they died away outside.
Eugénie nestled more closely in her husband's arms; she had learned to know now how well they could protect her.
"You came at the right moment, Arthur," said she, trembling still. "I had left my rooms in spite of your warning. It was very imprudent, I know, but I wanted to wait for you here, and I thought in the house I should be sure to be safe."
Arthur lowered the pistol, and drew her nearer to him.
"But you were not, we have gained that experience. What was Hartmann doing here in my study?"
"I do not know. He was looking for you, and certainly with no good intent."
"I am prepared for anything from that quarter," he answered quietly, as he laid the pistol on the table. "You see, I had provided for any such emergency, but I greatly fear it was only the prelude to what will take place to-morrow, when the real drama begins. Does it frighten you, Eugénie? The help we have sent for cannot be here before evening; we shall have to hold out alone all day against the rebels."
"Nothing frightens me when I am with you. But, Arthur," she pleaded anxiously, "do not go out by yourself again into the midst of all that tumult, as you did this morning. He will be there, and he has sworn to take your life."
He raised her head gently and looked into her eyes.
"Life and death are not in Hartmann's hands alone; their decision rests with another. Make your mind easy, Eugénie; I will do my duty, but I will do it in a different way than in the days gone by. I know now that my wife is anxious about me; that is not a thing one forgets so easily!"
On the terrace outside stood Ulric Hartmann. Darkness had fallen now, and the expression of his features was no longer discernible as he gazed up at the windows of the house he had just left, but his voice was low and hoarse with emotion as he repeated the threat he had before used with reference to Arthur Berkow,
"He or I, or, if it must be, both!"
Next morning! The thought of it had filled not only Arthur and his wife, but every one connected with the Berkow establishment, with grave and anxious care. It had come now, that dreaded morning, and all the apprehensions which had been felt respecting it seemed likely to be realised.
At a very early hour the whole staff of officials was assembled at the great house. They had either come to hold counsel or had taken refuge there; it almost seemed the latter, for the men's faces were pale, haggard, excited, and there was a great buzz of talk going on among them, much anxious discussion pro and con, proposals rejected as soon as made, and many fears expressed as to coming events.
"I am still of opinion that it was a mistake to arrest those men," Schäffer declared, speaking to the Director. "It might have been risked if the soldiers had been on the spot, but it should never have been attempted by us, while we are unsupported. They will storm the house to set the prisoners free, and we shall be obliged to give them up."
"Excuse me, we shall do nothing of the kind," cried the chief-engineer, in complete opposition to his two colleagues as usual. "We shall let them storm, and we shall hold out and defend ourselves here in the house if necessary. Herr Berkow is determined to do it."
"Well, you ought to know best what he has decided on doing; you are his only adviser," said the Director, rather piqued. He could boast of no such intimacy with the proprietor, although his position would rather have entitled him to it.
"Herr Berkow is in the habit of deciding for himself," replied the chief-engineer, drily. "Only it happens this time as usual that I fully agree with him. It would be contrary to all right and justice, it would be nothing better than mere paltry cowardice, to let these miscreants go. Why! they had avowed an intention of destroying the engines for us."
"By Hartmann's order," interposed Schäffer.
"It does not signify who gave the order. Their master arrived just in time to hinder them from performing their rascally trick, and I should like to see the man who would calmly have let the offenders go. He had them arrested, and he was right. Hartmann was not by, he was still down at the shafts in the thick of the row, but he could not prevent the others going below after all; his own father went and stood up against him."
"Yes, it was a good thing the Manager came to our aid," said the Director. "He must have seen there was no other way of averting the worst, for he came to us of his own free will this morning and offered to take the lead of the men going on shift, though it is no part of his business. He knew his son would not venture to attack him, and not one of the others lifted a hand against their mates when they saw their leader held back. If the descent was made, we have only the old man to thank for it."
"I tell you this," maintained Schäffer, "the descent had been accomplished, more than half the miners had stood by neutral, and if they had not been exasperated by the arrest of their comrades, the whole business might have been settled peaceably and quietly."
"Peaceably and quietly, while Hartmann is in command?" the chief-engineer laughed outright. "There you are quite mistaken. He was looking for a pretext, no matter what, to attack us, and, if he had found none, he would have attacked us all the same without. This morning's work must have shown him that his power is rapidly drawing to an end, that perhaps after to-day he may not be able to count on his partisans, so he will risk his last throw. The fellow knows he is lost, and he will drag down with him recklessly all who obey him still through habit or through fear. He will stand at nothing now, and least of all at injuring us."
Here they were interrupted by Herr Wilberg, who left the window where he had been posted for the last ten minutes and came back to them with a very white face.
"The noise gets worse and worse," said he timorously; "there can be no doubt that they mean to besiege the house, if Herr Berkow does not give way. The park-gates are down already, all the beds are trampled up. Oh! and all those lovely roses blooming on the terrace"----
"Don't come bothering us with your sentimental nonsense," cried the chief-engineer, as the Director and Schäffer hurried to the window. "Now when the rebels are storming the house about our heads, you are thinking of your trampled-down rose-trees. Why don't you go and sit down and put your lamentation over them into verse? I should think it would be just the theme to inspire a poet."
"I have been so unfortunate for some time as to excite your displeasure by everything I say or do, sir," returned Herr Wilberg, offended, but not without a sort of secret self-satisfaction which seemed to increase the other's ill-humour.
"Because you never say or do anything sensible," he growled, turning his back on the young man and going up to his colleagues, who were still looking out at the ever-growing tumult.
"We shall have it in earnest now," said the Director uneasily. "They are threatening to force an entrance. Herr Berkow ought to be told."
"Let him have a minute's peace," interposed the chief-engineer. "He has been at his post ever since daybreak. I think you might let him have five minutes with his wife now. All the necessary measures are taken, and when danger is really at hand, he will not be wanting, as you well know."
He was right. Ever since the dawn Arthur had been actively occupied, giving orders and instructions, and personally superintending all that was being done. He had hardly seen Eugénie until now, when he had gone with her for a few minutes into one of the adjoining rooms.
During this short interview he must have made her fully acquainted with the situation, for her arms were clasped round his neck, and she was clinging to him in the greatest agitation.
"You must not go out, Arthur. It would be a mad, a desperate venture. What can you do, one against so many? Yesterday, when you interfered, they were fighting among themselves, but to-day they will all turn against you. You will pay the penalty for your rashness. I will not let you go."
Arthur freed himself gently but firmly from her embrace.
"I must, Eugénie! It is the only possible way to avert the attack, and it is not the first time I have had to face such scenes. Why, what did you yourself do yesterday when you arrived?"
"I was coming to you," said she, in a tone which implied that any venture would so have been justified. "But you want to tear yourself from me and wildly expose yourself to the blind fury of this Hartmann. Think of what happened yesterday evening, think of his threats. If you must go, if there is no choice left, let me go with you at least. I am not afraid, I only tremble when I know you are in danger and alone."
He bent down to her gravely but lovingly.
"I know that you are brave, my Eugénie, but I should be a coward myself before those crowds, if I knew that a stone from their midst might strike you too. I want all my courage to-day, and I should not have it if I saw you in peril and felt I could not protect you. I know why you wish to go with me. You think I shall be safe from that one arm while you are at my side. Do not deceive yourself, that is all over and past since yesterday evening. You share the hatred now with which he has persecuted me, and if it were not so"--here his voice lost its soft inflection and his brow grew dark--"I would not owe my safety to a feeling which is alike an offence to you and to me, and which would in itself be sufficient to call for the man's dismissal, if his conduct in other respects did not make it necessary."
She must have felt the justice of his words, for she drooped her head in silent resignation.
Arthur started.
"The clamour is breaking out again, I must go. We shall only see each other for a few brief minutes at a time to-day, and even they will be anxious minutes for you, my poor wife. You could hardly have come back at a worse time."
"Would you rather have held out against them without me?" she asked in a low voice.
His face brightened, and there came into it an expression of passionate tenderness.
"Without you? I have gone on so far like the soldier of a forlorn hope. I only found out yesterday how one can fight with a will when the prosperity of a lifetime and all one's future are dependent on the result. You brought back to me the desire for both, and now they may assail us on all sides as they like. I believe in success now that I have you at my side once more!"
The officials hushed their noisy debatings as Berkow and his wife entered, and the impression produced on all hands by their appearance was due to something more than mere respect for the master. All eyes were at once fixed upon him, as though they could read in his face what was to be hoped or feared; they all pressed round him, as round a centre where support was to be found, and every one breathed more freely when he came in, as if the danger were half conjured already. This movement, involuntary as it was, showed Eugénie sufficiently the position her husband had conquered for himself, and the way in which he stepped in among them proved too that he well knew how to maintain it. His face, which she had seen but a few seconds before heavily clouded over by care, bore, now that it had to meet all those anxious enquiring looks, no other expression than that of a calm gravity, and there was an assurance in his bearing which would have instilled confidence into the faintest heart.
"Well, gentlemen, things look rather hostile and threatening outside. We must hold ourselves prepared for a sort of siege, perhaps even for an attack; does it not appear so to you?"
"They want to have the prisoners set free," said the Director, with a glance at Schäffer, inviting his support.
"Yes," said the latter, coming forwards, "and I fear we shall not be able to hold our own against all this uproar. The arrest of the three miners is their sole motive or pretext at present; if that were taken from them"...
"They would find another," interrupted Arthur, "and the weakness we should have betrayed would remove from them the last restraint. We must show neither hesitation nor fear now, or we shall lose the game at the last moment. I foresaw what would happen when I had those mischievous fellows arrested, but in the face of such a criminal attempt as that there was no choice but to proceed with the utmost severity. The prisoners will remain in custody until the troops arrive."
The Director beat a retreat, and Schäffer shrugged his shoulders. They had learnt to know that this tone of his would brook no contradiction.
"I do not see Hartmann in the crowd," continued Arthur, turning to the chief-engineer; "he is generally first wherever there are noise and tumult. To-day he seems only to have urged the others on, and then to have left them. He is nowhere visible."
"I have missed him for the last quarter of an hour," answered the other gravely. "I hope he is not up to fresh mischief elsewhere. You ordered back the men posted about the engine-houses, Herr Berkow?"
"Certainly. The few men we can dispose of are even more necessary here in the house, and, since the descent has been effected, the shafts and engines must be perfectly safe. They could not meddle with them without endangering their comrades down below."
"With such a leader, they may even be meaning that," said the official reflectively.
Arthur's brow grew dark, "Nonsense! Hartmann is an unruly fellow, a furious madman even, when he is irritated, but he is not a scoundrel, and that would be a scoundrelly act. He would have injured the engines to prevent the descent being made, but when he found he could no longer prevent it, why do you suppose he rushed off to the sheds? Certainly not to see that his father and comrades were given up to destruction; he wanted to recall his former orders, and it was only when he saw we had been beforehand with him that he broke out against us in his wrath at the failure of his plans. The engines are secured to us by the fact of the men being below. Not a hand will be raised to injure them while the Manager and the rest are in the mine, and so the storm is now turned against the house. I shall go out and make an attempt to calm them."
During the last few weeks the officials had been accustomed to see their leader act on similar occasions with resolute boldness and without regard to his own personal safety, but this time entreaties and remonstrances resounded on all sides; even the chief-engineer joined in to dissuade him, and Schäffer, knowing from what quarter opposition would alone avail, turned to Eugénie, still standing at her husband's side.
"Do not allow it, your ladyship. Not to-day, it is much more dangerous to-day than it has ever been before. The men are horribly excited, and Hartmann is staking his last throw. Keep Herr Berkow back."
At this warning, which did but confirm her own fears, she grew deadly pale, but she retained her composure; something of Arthur's calm seemed to have been communicated to her.
"My husband has told me he must make the attempt," she answered steadily, "he shall not say that I kept him back with tears and lamentations from what he holds to be his duty. Let him go."
Arthur held her hand clasped in his. He only thanked her by a look.
"Now, gentlemen, take example by my wife's courage. She has most cause to tremble. I repeat it, the attempt must be made. Let the hall-door be opened."
"We will all go with you," said the chief-engineer. "Fear nothing, my lady, I will not stir from his side."
Arthur put him aside quietly, but firmly.
"I thank you, but you must remain here with the other gentlemen. In such a case one man alone is generally safe against a crowd. If you were all to appear, they might take it for a challenge. Hold yourselves in readiness to cover my retreat into the house, if it comes to the worst. Farewell, Eugénie."
He went, accompanied as far as the stairs by the chief-engineer and several of the officials. No one attempted to stay him now. They all knew that in his appearance outside lay the only chance of averting a danger which it would be hard, if not impossible, for them to withstand for hours together here shut up in the house.
Eugénie rushed to one of the windows. She did not notice how all present were anxiously pressing round the others, did not hear the remarks exchanged in an undertone by the Director and Schäffer who were standing close behind her; she only saw that wild rebellious crowd, that sea of heads so densely packed together surging round the house, only heard those fierce cries demanding the surrender of the prisoners.
To this crowd her husband was about to expose himself alone; in the very next instant his life might be menaced by it. The iron gates of the park, more elegant than strong, had already yielded to the battery; they lay broken to pieces on the ground; the beautiful, carefully kept gardens, trodden under foot by hundreds, were nothing now but a desolate chaos of earth, remnants of flowers and plants, and trampled-down bushes.
Already the foremost men among the rebels had all but reached the terrace, and so were drawing very near the house itself; already here and there clenched fists could be seen, armed with stones and ready to hurl them at the windows. There was a confused rumour of shouts, threats and cries of all descriptions; every minute the clamour waxed louder and louder, until now and again it would rise for a second to a howl which was almost unearthly.
Suddenly there came a deep breathless silence. The uproar ceased abruptly, as though by an order from on high; the agitated groups paused in their restless movement, the great masses fell back, as if they had all at once encountered an obstacle, and all eyes, all faces, were turned in one direction. The hall-door had been opened, and the young master stepped out on to the terrace.
The lull lasted a few seconds, then the momentary surprise gave place to a fresh and more terrible outburst of fury which no longer lacked an aim. Those fierce yells, those faces distorted by passion, those threatening upraised arms, were all directed against one man; but that man was their master, the proprietor of the works, and that which the father, with all his industrial genius, his tenacity of purpose and arbitrary will, had failed to acquire during twenty years and more, the son had won for himself in a few weeks: the authority of his own personal influence; it worked even now when all the customary restraints of order were loosed.
He let the storm take its course. With his slight figure well erect, his steady eyes fixed on the multitude before him, every individual of which was superior to himself in strength, he stood facing them, alone and unarmed, with no protection save that which his authority gave him, waiting, as though the breakers of revolution, beating idly against him, must spend themselves in vain.
And they spent themselves. The general clamour gradually subsided into distinct and separate cries, then into a sullen murmur. At last even this was hushed, and Berkow's voice was raised, unintelligible at first through the movement surging round him, interrupted often by the tumult, which at intervals would break out afresh, then sink powerless again, until finally it died out altogether. Then the master's voice was heard, loud, clear and distinct, reaching the ears even of those who were farthest from him.
"Thank God!" muttered Schäffer, passing his handkerchief across his brow, "he has got them in hand now; they may be restive and struggle, but they will obey. See, my lady, how they are quieting down, how they recoil before him. They are actually retreating from the terrace and letting the stones drop from their hands. If Providence will only keep Hartmann out of the way, the danger is over."
He little knew with what intensity Eugénie reechoed the wish in her own mind. Up to this time she had sought in vain for that one dreaded figure; so long as it was not visible her courage did not fail her, so long she believed Arthur might yet be safe; but now security and hope were over. Whether the sudden lull in the uproar he had busied himself to raise had summoned the missing man to the spot, or whether a suspicion of what was taking place drew him thither at that critical moment, Ulric Hartmann, risen, as it were, from the ground, appeared suddenly at the park entrance behind them. One look sufficed to show him how matters stood.
"Cowards that you are!" he thundered to his comrades, as, followed by Lawrence and Deputy Wilms, he forced his way through the dense masses. "I thought as much almost, I thought you would be getting yourselves caught in his nets again while we were seeking information as to what they had done with the prisoners. We know now where they are, there at the balcony to the right, on the ground-floor, just at the back of the dining-room; that is where the attack must be made. Break in the plate-glass, it will save forcing open the door."
No one obeyed the injunction as yet, but it had its effect. Nothing is more vacillating, more unstable of purpose, than an excited crowd, accustomed to bow to the will of one resolute man.
In all the previous clamour and disturbance there had been an absence of any fixed plan, an indecision which had kept the rebels from any positive action; the eye, the arm, of the leader had been wanting. He was there now, and, as he grasped the reins, he gave them an aim and sure direction. They knew now where the prisoners were lodged, and knew how to get to them, and thus the danger, which had so nearly been conjured, was kindled afresh.
Ulric cared little at that moment whether his order were obeyed or not. He had forced a passage for himself through to the terrace, and stood confronting the master with all the defiant hostility of his rebellious nature, his gigantic form towering nearly a head above his fellows. He was a born leader of the masses; his fierce energy and despotic will carried them with him in blind obedience, and, spite of all that had happened, that might happen yet, his command over them was still for the time being unlimited. All the advantage which Arthur had obtained was called into question, if not wholly destroyed, by the mere appearance on the scene of this man whose influence worked at least as powerfully as his own.
"Where are our mates?" asked Hartmann in a tone of menace, and stepping up still closer. "We want them out at once! We will have no violence used to any of us."
"And I will not have my machinery destroyed," answered Arthur coldly and calmly. "I had the men arrested, though they were only the tools in another's hand. Who ordered that attempt upon the engines?"
There was a triumphant gleam in Ulric's eye; he had foreseen this firmness and built his plan upon it. He himself needed no pretext; he was bent on satisfying his hatred at any cost, but his partisans, wavering and ready to desert their flag, were in want of some provocation to urge them forward; it was necessary now to goad them on, and the adversary was bold and proud enough to offer them an incentive.
"I owe you no answers," he said disdainfully, "and I shall not allow myself to be questioned in that dictatorial way. Give up the prisoners, all the men on the works demand it, or" .... and his look completed the threat.
"The prisoners will be detained," declared Arthur unmoved, "and you, Hartmann, have no longer the right to speak in the name of all the men employed on the works; half of them have seceded from you already. I have nothing more to say to you."
"But I have something to say to you," shouted Ulric, desperate with rage. "Forwards," he cried, turning to the rebel masses, "forwards, on to our mates, strike down all that comes in your way!"
He would have rushed upon Berkow, thereby giving the signal for a general onset, but, before he could do so, before it could be determined whether the crowd behind him would render or refuse obedience, there boomed suddenly through the air a strange and terrible sound, making all the ground around them tremble.
The leader stopped electrified, and all present stood spell-bound, listening breathlessly for what would follow. It had been like the reverberation of a dull and distant shock, coming, as it seemed, from the very bowels of the earth, and was succeeded by a low rumble under ground which lasted a few seconds; then all was still as death, and hundreds of scared faces were turned in the direction of the works.
"Good God! that came from the mine; something has happened there!" cried Lawrence, with a great start of alarm.
"That was an explosion!" said the voice of the chief-engineer; during the last few critical minutes he had been on guard in the great hall at the head of the younger officials and all the available servants, ready to hasten to Arthur's assistance. "An accident has happened in the mine, Herr Berkow, we must go over."
For one moment horror seemed to paralyse every limb. No one moved; the warning was all too terrible. At the very moment when one party was rushing forward bent on the other's annihilation, destruction of another kind had reached their brothers down below. Now they were imperatively called on to abandon the attack and hurry to the rescue. Arthur was the first to recover himself.
"To the shafts!" he cried to the other officials, who by this time had come out of the house and were pressing round him, and, so saying, he set the example by himself speeding off before them all in the direction of the works.
"To the shafts!" shouted Ulric, turning to the miners.
The command was unnecessary; in an instant the crowd was rushing in wild haste, their leader at their head, to the scene of the disaster. He and Arthur reached the works first, and almost simultaneously.
Nothing was to be seen as yet of the effects of the destroying element; the thick column of smoke issuing from the shafts alone bore witness to what had happened, but it was eloquent enough. In less than ten minutes the whole surrounding space was crowded with human beings, who, now that their first mute horror was over, broke out loudly into lamentations and cries of fear and despair.
There is something appalling and yet elevating about a great misfortune which is not due to the hand of man, for it almost invariably brings into play the better side of human nature, saving its honour, and cleansing it from those evil passions which at other times disfigure and obscure it. The revolution in the general feeling was so sudden, so instantaneous, it hardly seemed to be the same multitude which, but a few minutes before, had clamoured round the house, menacing destruction if not murder, because their wild demands were not conceded. Strife, enmity, the hatred of long months, all gave way now to the one thought of rescuing those below.
To this rescue, miners and officials, friends and foes, pressed forward indiscriminately, and foremost among them were they who had been most ardent in rebellion. An hour before they had threatened their comrades, and would have attacked and beaten them down if their leader's own father had not led the gang, and now that the self-same comrades were in peril of their lives, each man would have risked his own to have succoured them. The awful message had borne fruit.
"Back!" cried Arthur, stepping forward to meet them, as, without any definite plan, they pressed blindly forward. "You cannot help now, you will only hinder the officials' approach. We must first ascertain how and where it is possible to penetrate into the shaft. Make way for the engineers."
"Make way for the engineers!" repeated those nearest him. The cry resounded through the ranks, and a narrow passage was at once formed for the chief-engineer and his staff, who now came up from an opposite direction.
"There is no possibility of forcing our way in over there yonder," said he to Arthur, pointing towards the lower shaft which was in connection with the upper one, and from which mighty columns of smoke and thick vapour were issuing. "We have not even made the attempt, for no human being could breathe in that infernal steaming cauldron. Hartmann tried it, but when he had gone five or six steps, he was forced to beat a retreat half stifled, and he was just able to drag out Lawrence, who had followed him, but had fallen at the entrance. Our only hope lies in the upper drawing-shaft; perhaps they may have taken refuge there. Set the engines going, we must make the descent that way."
The man in charge of the machinery, to whom these words were addressed, stood by pale and agitated without preparing to obey.