It was nervous work for the master and the men who were tending the molten ore to conceal their anxiety. The beautiful white iron, flowing like etherealized lava, rushing out from the dark, oven-like furnaces and spreading into the little canals made ready for it, gave one a better idea of pure light than anything could do. The heat was intense, and the men opened the doors with immense long poles tipped with iron; the gradual darkening of the evening threw shadows about the place, and the streams of living light, that looked as the atmosphere of God’s throne might look, settled into their moulds, hardening and darkening into long, heavy, unlovely bars. A suppressed excitement was at work; groups of men came up every minute with contradictory reports as to the accident; women and children met them with wild questions or equally wild recognition; and the master repeatedly sent messages to the mouth of the shaft. At last, throwing by all pretence, he begged his guests to wait for news, and with Lawrence went back to the mine. More men were coming up—the last but five, he was told—and Mr. Carpeggio had said he thought he and his four mates could do all that was needed and come up before any mischief happened to them. The soil was loosening under the action of water, and to save the ore accumulated below, and which could not be hauled up in time, they had built a sort of wall across the gallery as well as the circumstances and the time would allow; Mr. Carpeggio had sent the men away as fast as he could spare them, and kept only four with him to finish, which was the most dangerous part of the business, as the water threatened them more and more. “He sent all the married men up first, and asked the rest to volunteer as to who among them should stay, as he only wanted four,” said one of the men; “and I thought they would all have insisted upon staying, but he grew angry and said there was no time; so they agreed to draw lots.” Another quarter of an hour’s suspense, and then a low, muttering sound that spread horror among the whispering multitude gathered at the mouth of the shaft. Some men went down to the first level, and soon came up with blank faces and whispered to the master: no sound but that of water was to be heard below, and fears for the safety of the workers were too confidently expressed. Nothing remained but to give orders for affording relief; the only comfort was that there had been no sign of the air becoming vitiated. Here the master’s experience was at fault, and he had to rely on that of some of the older men. “If Carpeggio had been here, he would have got the men out in two hours,” he asserted confidently; “but he must go and get himself mewed up there, and leave me no one to direct things—though I believe he can get himself out as quick as any of us can dig him out,” he said, with a half-laugh; and one of the men whispered to his neighbor: