Then they cleared a semicircle round him. He put his back to the door, raised his arms aloft, directly over his head, bowed himself backward, so that his head and heels alone touched the door, and his back was bowed forward as a bent bow is against the string. Then, setting his teeth and putting all the energy of his body into the muscles of his arms and shoulders, he swung the two weights downward with prodigious force, loosed them from his hold when they came level with his legs, sprang forward, and turned swiftly round with a look of expectant success. The crowd cheered. The two half-hundredweights had crushed through the lower portion of the door as though it were so much cardboard. The lock remained unshaken. The blows had been delivered too low down, and, while the wood had given way, the iron had remained firm. Then, while the people were standing admiring the result of his great strength, a man cried out: "Here's a crowbar, Bill. You can finish it with that." Bill caught the crowbar in his hand, whirled it over his head as though it were but a walking-cane, leaped back from the door as far as the narrowness of the lane would allow him; then, holding the crowbar lightly in his hand, as a soldier holds his gun at the charge, he dashed forward and flung the crowbar with its blunt edge against the place where the lock held fast. The lock had been loosened on the door by the previous assault, and now, with a tearing screech, the bolts drew out of the tough wood, and the door swung back on its hinges. When Bill had succeeded, and seen that he had succeeded, he turned round, surveyed the crowd steadily for a few moments, and then said: "That's my share of it. You do the rest." Then, as one who had no further concern with the matter, he strode off, the people making way for him as he went. Two or three men approached the door and looked in. Below was a wild jumble of planks and beams and stones and earth, all mixed up, higgledy-piggledy, in the wildest confusion. It was impossible to make out anything clearly at first, owing to the dense dust that floated in the air. The men who had thrust in their heads withdrew them after a short time, partly suffocated and partly blinded by the fumes that arose out of the pit beneath. "Ask is there anyone there," suggested one of the crowd. A head was thrust in through the open doorway, and a stentorian voice cried out: "Anyone there!" To this a feeble voice replied from what seemed to be the bowels of the earth: "Yes. Help. Water, for God's sake." "All right," shouted the man above. "We'll get you out safe enough. Keep up your heart. Are the two of you below?" "Yes," answered the feeble voice; "but he is dead. Quick, for God's sake, or I shall die. This dust is killing me." "Keep up," shouted the man, "and we'll do the best. We'll get you out in a jiffy. There's a hundred of us here. How much of the place has fallen?"