At length only himself and one other remained. It was the miner who had been his companion from the first. They had reached a distant ‘working,’ and stopped an instant to take breath, difficult as it was to do this, both from the necessity of continuing their flight, and also from the nature of the inflammable air that surrounded them. Some who had arrived here before them, had been less fortunate. Half-buried in black slush lay the dead body of a miner, scorched to a cinder by the wildfire; and on a broad ledge of coal sat another man, in an attitude of faintness, with one hand pressed, as with a painful effort, against his head. The black-damp had suffocated him: he was quite dead. Beyond this Flashley knew nothing until he found himself placed in a basket, and rising rapidly through the air, as he judged, by a certain swinging motion, and the occasional grating of the basket against the sides of the shaft. After a time he ventured to look up, and to his joy, not unmixed with awe, he discerned the mouth of the shaft above, apparently of the size of a small coffee-cup. Some coal-dust and drops of water fell into his eyes; he saw no more; but with a palpitating heart, full of emotions, and prayers, and thankfulness, for his prospect of deliverance, continued his ascent. Printed by BRADBURY & EVANS, Whitefriars, London. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES ● Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. ● Renumbered footnotes. ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. ● The caret (^) serves as a superscript indicator, applicable to individual characters (like 2^d) and even entire phrases (like 1^{st}).