by Ian Hay
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.
THE LAST TO LEAVE.
It was night once more, and the great arc lights snapped and sizzledabove the waste-heaps and truck-lines surrounding the head of BeltonPit. But the scene was deserted. The centre of interest had shifted toShawcliffe, a mile away. Here a vast silent throng of human beingsstood expectantly in groups, their faces illuminated by the naphthaflares which had been erected here and there about the long-abandonedpithead.
There was news--tense, thrilling news--and the prospect of more. Theancient shaft had been opened and a bucket and tackle rigged--therewas no time to ship a cage--and a search party had gone down at dusk.Word had shortly been sent up that the road to the south was stillopen, though the air was foul and the props rickety. Then came afrantic tug at the rope, and a messenger was hauled to the surface,crying aloud that men were alive in Belton Pit. It was hoped, headded, that the search party would reach them by midnight, for thedividing wall was surprisingly thin. Sir John Carr's order was thatblankets and stretchers should be prepared; also food and medicalcomforts, for the prisoners had fasted for something like sixty hours.With that the messenger had dived below once more, and the game ofpatience was resumed.
It was past midnight now, and everything was in readiness. On theoutskirts of the throng, at the side of the rough and lumpy road,stood a motor-car with two occupants--women. One of them was herladyship; the other the spectators failed to recognise. But there wererumours about to the effect that she was a visitor to Belton recentlyarrived from London. Lady Carr had been seen meeting her at thestation that afternoon.
The stranger's name, had it been told, would not have conveyed muchinformation to the watchers. It was Nina Tallentyre.
* * * * *
There was a sudden swirl and heave in the crowd. The hand-turnedwindlass was at work again, and some one was being hauled slowly upthe shaft. It was Mr Walker, the manager.
They made a lane for him, until he reached a convenient rostrum formedby an inverted and rusty truck. This he mounted and very briefly toldthem the news--news which made them laugh foolishly and sob by turns.There was no cheering: they were past that.
In the excitement the next man who followed him up the shaft passedunnoticed. It was Sir John Carr. He saw the hooded motor standingapart, Mr Vick sitting motionless at the wheel. Next moment he was inbeside the two women, overalls and all, holding Daphne's hands in asingle grimy fist and telling them what we know already.
"Is he _perfectly_ safe?" asked Nina for the tenth time. She did notpossess Daphne's aristocratic composure under critical circumstances.
"Yes--but very weak. I am sending him up second. The first is apit-boy. When Carthew arrives you had better put him in the motor andtake him straight home."
"Jack!" said Daphne.
She slipped out of the car and accompanied her husband into thedarkness outside the radius of flaring lights.
"Are you going down again?" she asked.
"I am."
"And when are you coming up?" The unflinching courage which upholds somany women in the face of danger had never failed Daphne during thoselong days and nights. But now the courage was receding with thedanger.
Juggernaut smiled.
"When would you have me come up?" he asked.
"Last," said Daphne, suddenly proud. "It is the only place for you. Iwill wait here. Nina can take her Jim home, and the car can come backlater for you and me. Jack!"
Her husband turned and regarded her curiously. Their eyes met.
"Well?" he said.
"Jack," continued Daphne in a low voice, "is there much risk downthere--for you, I mean?"
"There is always risk, of a sort, down a coal-pit," replied herhusband pontifically. "A little explosive marsh-gas, or a handful offinely divided coal-dust lying in a cranny, might suddenly assertitself. Still, there are risks everywhere. One might be struck down byapoplexy at a vestry meeting."
Daphne gave his arm a squeeze, an ingratiating childish squeeze,suggestive of the Daphne of old negotiating for extension of dressallowance.
"Jack, stay up here! You have done enough."
"_Post me, Satanella!_" smiled her husband. Then, more seriously:"Daphne, if I came to you and asked for orders _now_, where would yousend me, I being what I am--the proprietor of the pit--and you beingwhat you are--the proprietress of my good name?"
Daphne's fit had passed.
"I should send you," she answered bravely, "down the shaft, withorders to stay there until every one else was safely out."
"I obey," said Juggernaut. "_Au revoir!_"
"Jack!" said Daphne faintly. Her face was uplifted.
"It will be a coaly one!" said her husband, complying. Then came anaccusation.
"Daphne, you are trembling! This is not up to your usual standard."
"I can't help it," said Daphne miserably. "I am a coward. But I don'tmind," she added more cheerfully, "so long as no one else knows. _You_won't give me away!"
At that Juggernaut held her to him a moment longer.
"Daphne, my wife," he whispered suddenly--"thank God for you--atlast!"
Then they fell apart, and she ran lightly back to the motor and Nina.
Once she turned and looked over her shoulder, waving her handprettily. Her face, framed in a motor bonnet and lit by the glare of anaphtha light, looked absurdly round and childish, just as it had doneupon a dim and distant morning in Snayling Church.
It was the last time in his life that her man was ever to behold it.
* * * * *
Master Hopper, partially restored by brandy and meat juice, andfeeling, on the whole, something of a hero, arrived at the pit-head anhour later, there to be claimed by his mother and hustled off, by morewilling hands than he could comfortably accommodate, home to bed. Thebucket, which provided standing-room for two passengers, then wentdown again.
This time it brought up Mr Walker, holding a supporting arm roundCarthew--a sick man indeed. He was less hardened to subterraneanexistence than the rest. Sympathetic murmurs arose. The bucket wasswung out from beneath the pulley and landed gently on the edge of theshaft. Carthew stepped out and stood swaying uncertainly.
A tall girl came suddenly forward.
"Jim, dear!" was all she said.
Carthew surveyed her, and smiled weakly.
"Hallo, Nina! That you?"
Miss Tallentyre took his arm.
"The car is waiting for you," she said. "Lean on me _hard_, old boy!"
And certainly no more desirable prop than this girl, with her splendidyouth and glorious vitality, was ever offered to a weary mortal.Carthew, dazed but utterly content, put a feeble arm round the slimshoulders of the woman whose mere hand he had hitherto counted itheaven to touch, and the pair passed away together out of thecrowd--and out of this narrative. Happiness has no history.
Others were coming up the shaft now. First Mr Wilkie, in a very fairstate of preservation: then Denton, the reprobate, insensible--hishands were in tatters, so fiercely had he worked,--then Atkinson,still sheer drunk with the success of his own hymnology: then AmosEntwistle.
Denton's huge inanimate form was laid on a stretcher, to be carriedhome under the direction of his wife. (The wives of Renwick and Davis,poor souls, had gone home long ago.) But, the Belton Hall motorreturning on that instant, Lady Carr insisted on carrying husband andwife home together. The rush through the night air brought Dentonround, and he was able to walk into his own house, leaningundeservedly upon the proudest little woman in the north of England.
Daphne returned to the pit-head for the last time. The rescue work wascompleted. Surely she might claim him now!
No, the block and tackle were not working. No one else was coming upat present. Only round the shaft a knot of men conferred eagerly. Shewould wait in the car.
She lay back, wrapped in a rug--a cold dawn was breaking--and closedher eyes. The rush and excitement of the three days had told uponher. She
had no clear recollection of having slept for any length oftime or eaten at any definite period. She had done work among strickenwives and mothers that Belton village would never forget, but she hadnot realised this. All her head and heart were filled by the mightyknowledge that after five years of married life she and her husbandhad found one another.
Meanwhile there was silence round the pit-head.
"Vick," said Daphne, suddenly fearful, "go and find Mr Walker, or someone, and ask when Sir John will be up."
Mr Vick, who had been dozing comfortably at his wheel, clambered downinto the muddy road and departed as bidden. Ten minutes later hereturned falteringly.
"Mr Walker has just gone down the pit again, my lady," he said. "Therehas been a slight explosion of coal-dust, I was to tell you. Nothingserious--just a flash and a spit in a holler place in the roof, themessage said."
"Is Sir John down there?" Cold fear gripped Daphne's heart.
"Yes, my lady."
"Is he safe, do you know?"
"I couldn't say, my lady," replied Vick doggedly. "I'll inquire."
He turned away, glad to escape, with the brisk demeanour of oneanxious to investigate matters. But before he reached the pit-head theanswer to all possible inquiries came to meet him, in the form of aslow-moving procession carrying something in its midst.
Very gently the bearers laid the stretcher on the grass by theroadside. Daphne, white, silent, but composed, stooped down and turnedback the blanket which covered her husband's face. He lay very still.His head and eyes were roughly bandaged. Daphne whispered, so low thatnone other could hear.
"Jack--my Jack!"
His voice answered hers, from amid the bandages--faint, butimperturbable as ever.
"I'm all right, dear. Afraid it has got me in the eyes a bit, though.Take me home, wife of mine! You will have to lead me about with astring now!"
Daphne's head sank lower still, and she whispered, almost exultantly--
"At last I can really be of some use to you!"
