By dint of persuasion and argument, the superintendents at length prevailed on the men to make a vigorous effort. In a very short time, that effort was crowned with success. The instrument of one of the miners penetrated into the shut-up gallery, and was drawn from his hands by the poor imprisoned miners. But the man who had thus been the first to open a way into their dungeon, was still more unfortunate than they were. At the moment when hope dawned to them, it set forever to him. He was the father of one of the men who had disappeared in the mine. His paternal feelings seemed to have endowed him with superhuman strength. Night and day he quitted his work only for a few minutes to return to it with redoubled vigor. One absorbing thought occupied his whole soul; the idea that his son, his _only_ son, was with those who were heard from within. In vain he was solicited to retire; in vain they strove to force him from labors too fatiguing for his age. “My son is among them,” said he; “I hear him; nothing shall prevent me from hastening his release;” and from time to time he called on his son, in accents that tore the hearts of the bystanders. His first question, on the instrument being drawn from his hand, was, “My child!” His Antoine was no more; he had been drowned. For four days, medical men had been present in the mine, to be ready to give their aid, as soon as a passage should be opened. They now directed soup to be introduced through a tube, and air to be forced into the gallery by means of bellows. Food was, however, by no means the most urgent want of the captives; light was what they first and most pressingly requested. A tinder-box was conveyed to them, but the vitiated air of their dungeon rendered it of no use. At first, they seemed to be strengthened by the soup, of which they had made their oldest and weakest companions the earliest partakers; but afterwards it had a contrary effect. They therefore for the present rejected the nourishment which was occasionally supplied, and expressed but one wish, which was that their friends would make haste. Yet one at least there was, who had not lost all his gaiety. This was a man, named Fereol. When he was asked what day he thought it was, be replied, “Sunday;” and upon being told it was Monday, he rejoined, “Ah, I ought to have known that――for yesterday we indulged ourselves by tippling freely――of water.”