Presently, while the others were preparing to follow him, they heard him cry out in sudden alarm.

Before they could get to him he came back running, and his clothes streaming down with water, to say the water was in the dip,' and he had got into it before he knew, and his foot slipped, and so he had gone down into it over head.

The two men looked at each other for a moment in blank stupor and silence.

Then one of them sat down on the ground, sayingWe are done now! we are dead men!' and seemed ready to resign all hope and effort in the blackness of his despair.

6

Come, Jim,' says the other, that won't do. Let's fight for our lives, anyhow. Rouse thee, man. Let's work through.'

The other shook his head, but at last rose to his feet, and taking heart of grace from the energy of his companion, who was already at work with his pick, prepared to begin also.

He was stopped by his comrade.

We can't both dig; we must only make a hole big enough to go through. So while I work you rest, and while you work I'll rest. The boys must take the coal as fast as we break it down, and put it out of our way.'

'But they've no shovels, no baskets, no nothing,' querulously said the listener.

They've fingers, hands, and jackets. Now for it.' He began striking as hard, as fast, but also as skilfully as possible, till he was in a profuse sweat, and his strength failing.

Then he stopped, and the other, without a moment's intermission, pursued the work.

And so they went on hour after hour.

The boys meanwhile scraped the coal together with their hands, and ran away with it the moment they had got enough to fill the cavity of their jackets.

No wonder if their fingers soon became raw, but they went on unflinchingly.

And at last, after a lengthened period of dreadful exertion, and still more dreadful suspense and anxiety, they had got through, and were able to reach and stand before Rees Thomas.

A sudden, but faint and distant, explosion now spread new alarm through the mass of colliers, and before there was time to speak to them, or arrest their footsteps, as they were running hither and thither, it was followed by another explosion, nearer and far more terrible.

Rees Thomas and a man who had stayed near him, moved by his secret but truly unconscious faith that to be near one so good was almost like a promise of salvation, went to a man-hole near, that happily was big enough to give them partial shelter; and there stooping low as a precaution, they heard the burst of an awful thunder-clap, followed by a great hurricane sweeping like a messenger of ruin through the mine.

In an instant they were lifted out like mere playthings for the tempest, and thrown down in the middle of the roadway, both for the moment stupefied.

But Rees Thomas recovered himself almost instantly; and, while his companion lay still senseless, saw or seemed to see the rolling of the flames-rolling now like the waves of the sea when the lurid light of a burning ship is on them, and now like a snowstorm-to and fro on the varying currents of the wind seeking a way out, and exhibiting (if his eyes did not deceive him through some hallucination of the brain) bright and beautiful colours, red, blue, and white; then a moment or two more, and all had passed away; darkness again reigned, and the chokedamp, as the follower of death, came to reap the fruits.

It would seem that the current of air being confined kept the flames in existence unusually long. And as when they first rushed through the confined space they kept near the roof, Rees Thomas and his companion escaped injury then, but on the return of the flames, as they found no instant means of exit, they came along the bottom, and thus both the men were sadly burned.

Rees Thomas, in his anxiety about his companion, did

not at first know how or where he was himself injured, beyond the fact of the pain.

A slight wind was felt at that moment, and it produced such intolerable anguish in Rees Thomas's face, that his hand went instinctively up to feel; and then he knew he was badly burnt; and his thoughts-for he was human, after all-flying towards Margaret Doubleday, he felt with the most exquisite sense of anguish he had yet ever known that henceforward he would perhaps be intolerable to her very sight.

CHAPTER XX.

DEATH OR VICTORY.

HERE was a new enemy for Rees Thomas to wrestle with, if he would not be utterly overthrown and left helpless, with all these poor wandering men, lost in the deep black darkness, that stretched away from him in various directions; all needing spiritual comfort and guidance, even if he should be unable to render them material help.

He knelt and prayed, and was strengthened.

Margaret became to him once more as a star of light, beckoning to him to arise, deliver these helpless captives, and come forth with them, and have faith in her to glory in her love, rather than to shrink from him because of his misfortune.

Having with his fingers cleared his mouth of the dust which had almost choked him, he put his hand towards his pocket for his tea jack (or can). Both jacket and teacan had been blown away.

Again a moment of intense depression; for even though a man, contending with his own nature, relies upon but little of comfort, he feels keenly the deprivation of that little.

N

But then again he cried out,

'O my divine Lord and Master, I understand now! I must lean on, trust to Thee alone, use that Thou hast given me. Thou wilt have me heart and soul in Thy service, looking nowhere else for aid and succour. So be it. I am ready.'

And he stood there in that utter darkness, as devoted as was ever the most brave soldier on the most hopeless of missions, ready either for death or victory, calm of heart and clear of brain.

Knowing the importance of excluding the air, he tied a handkerchief carefully over his face, although the touch of the fabric was torture, and then he turned to seek his companion.

After feeling about for some time vainly, he felt the man's shoe, and then gradually feeling along got to his shoulder.

Sam!' he cried to him.

But there was no answer, except one that was more comforting than painful at that moment-a groan.

Sam! speak! are you hurt?'

Ay, ay, I shan't need to fear much more, if that's any comfort!"

The man complained, strange to say, of a bad burn under the arms, though there was no hole in his clothing. In fact he had been in that brief moment of subjection to the tempest so knocked about, that his loose clothing must have been lifted, and hence the burn.

6

Oh, Rees Thomas,' he said at last, as opening his over-full heart, here's a morning!'

It is, indeed,' was the reply.

The morning' was nearer evening now, but the man had lost all sense of time, and remembered only it had been morning when the calamity opened upon him.

'Rise up, there's a good fellow,' appealed Rees Thomas, for he was lying flat on his breast on the ground, as if he had consciously done with the world, and was seeking the one and only remaining thing, the rest of the grave.

He got up, and his first words were, to the great solace of Rees Thomas-

Oh, dear Jesus! Let us pray together, let us pray!' They did both kneel down and pray, the one first thanking God they were still alive, and asking that He would keep them so, if it were His good will, the other supplementing that prayer by one for all the other men who were in the same danger.

The man then wanted to lie down again, but Rees Thomas told him sternly he must come with him.

They took hands, and moved on; the spare hand on

each side stretched out to the arm's fullest extent to feel for the sides of the roadway, or for any unexpected obstacles.

Their feet moved nervously at each step, lest they might descend upon the yielding body of a comrade.

They did strike against some form that not long ago had had life, but it proved to be the dead body of a horse. At that moment a piercing cry went right through Rees Thomas's soul.

It was the voice of a boy crying

'Mother! Oh, mother! Dear, dear mother!'

'David, is it thee?' rang out the collier-preacher's voice with wonderful power.

For a moment there was no reply, but quickly feet were heard coming, yet as if compelled to pause either from pain and injury, or from the difficulties in the way. David, is it thee?"

There was still no answer, save such as was given by the rush upon him of David himself, his heart bursting with anguish, and yet with the sense of possible relief, as he clasped Rees Thomas round the neck, guided to him only by the voice.

After a few moments of joyful embrace, Rees Thomas made a movement to put the lad down; but whether hallucination or fright moved him it was impossible to say, but he clung to him with all the tenacity with which he could possibly cling to life itself; the two indeed seemed confused into the one and same thing.

When Rees Thomas again essayed to put him down, he found the lad's arms and legs immovable, unless he used