"Who's below?" "Where's the fall?" "Didn't I tell you?-- Didn't I say them sets wasn't sound?" "Is it Fred? He was reckless was Baker; now he's seen his last shift underground." "And his mate? Where is Sandy M'Fadyn?" "Sandy's snoring at home on his bunk." "Not at work! Name of God! a foreboding?" "A foreboding be hanged! He is drunk!" "Take it steady there, lads!" the boss orders. He is white to the roots of his hair. "We may get him alive before daybreak if he's close to the face and has air." In the dim drive with ardour heroic two facemen are pegging away. Long and Coots in the rise heard her thunder, and they fled without word or delay Down the drive, and they rushed for the ladders, and they went up the shaft with a run, For they knew the weak spot in the workings, and they guessed there was graft to be done. Number Two was pitch dark, and they scrambled to the plat and they made for the face, But the roof had come down fifty yards in, and the reef was all over the place. Fresher men from the surface replace them, and they're hauled up on top for a blow; When a life and death job is in doing there's room only for workers below. Bare-armed, and bare-chested, and brawny, with a grim, meaning set of the jaw, The relay hurries in to the rescue, caring not for the danger a straw; 'Tis not toil, but a battle, they're called to, and like Trojans the miners respond, For a dead man lies crushed 'neath the timbers, or a live man is choking beyond. By the faint, yellow glow of the candles, where the dank drive is hot with their breath, On the verge of the Land of the Shadow, waging war breast to bosom with Death, How they struggle, these giants! and slowly, as the trucks rattle into the gloom, Inch by inch they advance to the conquest of a prison--or is it a tomb? And the workings re-echo a volley as the timbers are driven in place; Then a whisper is borne to the toilers: "Boys, his mother is there on the brace!" Like veterans late into action, fierce with longing to hew and to hack, Riordan's shift rushes in to relieve them, and the toil-stricken men stagger back. "Stow the stuff, mates, wherever there's stowage! Run the man on the brace till he drops! There's no time to think on this billet! Bark the heels of the trucker who stops! Keep the props well in front, and be careful. He's in there, and alive, never fret." But the grey dawn is softening the ridges, and the word has not come to us yet.