With one instant of agonized thought he decided that he could not. Snatching up a can of oil on which his eye happened to light as it stood by the track just at the foot of the slope, he dashed into gangway No. 1, shouting as he did so, "I'm going to try and get Paul Evert out! If we don't get back come and look for us; we'll hold out as long as we can." They tried to stop him, and shouted to him to come back; that there was no hope, and he was only throwing away his own life; but he paid no attention to them, and was gone before they could prevent him. He had hardly disappeared from their sight when the water began to rush and roar up from the mouth of the lower slope, in a froth-crowned, surging torrent. At the same instant it poured out from the old gangway, to which it had access through the air-shaft up which Derrick and his companions had escaped. They knew by its great leaps and spurts that some other reservoir had broken loose, and that before it found the level it was seeking the whole mine must be flooded and drowned. There was no more thought of saving property, but each man became intent only on escaping with his life from the swirling flood. They had got several cars fastened together, ready for such an emergency, and now these were quickly filled with grimy-faced, frightened men and boys. The signal was given to hoist. There came a strain on the great cable, and as the fierce waters rushed at them, and even flung their black, wet arms about them as if to hold them back, the cars were drawn up, slowly up, beyond reach of the destroying flood, towards daylight and safety. At the top of the slope was another scene of wild anxiety and confusion most pitiable to witness. Men, women, and children stood, without other protection than their thin garments, in the pitiless rain, praying, shouting, discussing, asking questions which nobody could answer, and crowding forward to scan, with breathless anxiety, the faces of each car-load of miners as it reached the surface. At the mouth of the slope stood Mr. Jones, in constant communication with a trusty fellow down in the mine, at the other end of the speaking-tube. With him were half a dozen steady men, upon whom he could depend, and to whom he had given orders not to allow a living soul to go down in any of the empty cars he was despatching as rapidly as possible to those below, "There are plenty down there now," he said, "and perhaps more than can be drawn up before the water reaches them. You can do no good there yet awhile. When the time comes that I want volunteers to go down I'll let you know fast enough." He kept the mouth of the travelling-road similarly guarded, and no one was allowed to descend. Among those who pressed close to him, and begged, almost with tears in their eyes, to be allowed to go down and make one effort to save their loved ones before the waters reached them, was burly Tom Evert.