As they walked, they spoke now and then of the possible cause of the disaster: whereof Dixon, as they passed him, had bluntly declined to say a word till his task was done. George, with the characteristic contempt of intelligence for the blunderer, threw out a few caustic remarks as to the obstinate disobedience or carelessness of a certain type of miner--disobedience which, in his own experience even, had already led to a score of fatal accidents. Burrows, irritated apparently by his tone, took up a provoking line of reply. Suppose a miner, set to choose between the risk of bringing the coal-roof down on his head for lack of a proper light to work by, and the risk of "being blown to hell" by the opening of his lamp, did a mad thing sometimes, who were other people that they should blame him? His large, ox-like eyes, clear in the light of his lamp, turned a scornful defiance on his companion. "Try it yourself, my fine gentleman"--that was what the expression of them meant. "He doesn't only risk his own life," said George, shortly. "That's the answer.--I say, Macgregor, isn't this the door to the Meadows Pit? If anything cut us off from the shaft, and supposing we couldn't get round yet by the return, we might have to try it, mightn't we?" Macgregor assented, and George as he passed stepped up to the heavy wooden door, and tried one of the keys he held, that he might be sure of opening it in case of need. The door had been unopened for long, and he shook it backwards and forwards to make the key bite. Meanwhile Macgregor had lingered a little behind, while Burrows had walked on. Suddenly, above the rattle of the door a cracking noise was heard. A voice of agony rang through the roadway. "Run, Sir George! run!" A rattle like thunder roared through the mine. It was heard at the pithead, and the people crowded there ran hither and thither in dismay, thinking it was another explosion. * * * * * Hours passed. At last in George's numbed brain there was a faint stir of consciousness. He opened his eyes slowly. Oh, horror! oh, cruelty! to come back from merciful nothingness and peace to this burning anguish, not to be borne, of body and mind. "I had died," he thought--"it was done with," and a wild, impotent rage, as against some brutality done him, surged through him. A little later he made a first slight movement, which was answered at once by another movement on the part of a man sitting near him. The man bent over him in the darkness and felt for his pulse. "Burrows!" The whisper was just perceptible. "Yes, Sir George." "What has happened? Where is Macgregor? Give me some brandy--there, in my inner pocket." "No; I have it. Can you swallow it? I have tried several times before, but your mouth was set--it ran down my fingers." "Give it me." Their fingers met, George feeling for the flask. As he moved his arm a groan of anguish broke from him. "Drink it--if you possibly can."