close by. He was at home, and, the messenger going in to tell him the particulars, in five minutes he had his gig at the door. The rector, who had gone in too, came out with him, and, without asking leave, climbed to the seat beside him.

'What is this?' said the surgeon, turning to him sharply. He was an elderly man, stout and white-haired. Are you coming, too, Mr. Lindo?'

'I think so,' the rector answered. 'There may be cases in which you can do little and I much. Mr. Walker, the vicar of Baerton, is ill in bed, I know; and as the news has come to me first, I think I ought to go.'

'Right you are!' said Mr. Keogh gruffly, yet with a shrug of the shoulders. 'Let go!'

In another moment the fast-trotting cob was whirling the two men down the street. They turned the corner sharply, and as the breeze met them on the bridge, compelling Lindo to turn up the collar of his coat and draw the rug more closely round him, the church clock in the town behind them struck the half-hour. 'Half-past five,' said the rector. The surgeon did not answer. They were in the open country now, the hedges speeding swiftly by them in the light of the lamps, and the long outline of Baer Hill, a huge misshapen hump which rose into a point at one end, lying dim and black before them. A night drive is always impressive. In the gloom, in the sough of the wind, in the sky serenely star-lit, or a tumult of hurrying clouds, in the rattle of the wheels, in the monotonous fall of the hoofs, there is an appeal to the sombre side of man. How much more is this the case when the sough of the wind seems to the imagination a cry of pain, and the night is a dark background on which the fancy paints dying faces! At such a time the cares of life, which day by day rise one beyond another and prevent us dwelling overmuch on the end, sink into pettiness, leaving us face to face with weightier issues.

'There have been accidents here before?' the clergyman asked, after a long silence.

'Thirty-five years ago there was one!' his companion answered, with a groan which betrayed his apprehensions. Good heavens, sir, I remember it now! I was young then and fresh from the hospitals; but it was almost too much for me!'

'I hope that this one has been exaggerated,' Lindo replied, entering fully into the other's feelings. I did not quite under

stand the man's account; but, as far as I could follow it, one of the two shafts-the downcast shaft I think he said—was choked by the explosion, and rendered quite useless.'

'Just what I expected!' ejaculated his companion.

'So that they could only reach the workings through the upcast shaft, in which they had rigged up some temporary lifting gear.'

'Ay, and it is the deepest pit here,' the surgeon chimed in, as the horse began to breast the steeper part of the ascent, and the furnace fires, before and above them, began to flicker and glow, now sinking into darkness, now flaming up like beacon-lights. 'The workings are two thousand feet below the surface, man!'

'Stop!' Lindo said. 'Here is some one looking for us, I think.' Two women with shawls over their heads came to the side of the gig. 'Be you the doctors?' one of them said, peering in. Keogh answered that they were, and then in another minute the two were following her up the side of the cutting which here confined the road. The hillside gained, they were hurried through the darkness round pit-banks and slag-heaps, and under cranes and ruinous sinking walls, and over and under mysterious obstacles, sometimes looming large in the gloom and sometimes lying unseen at their feet-until they emerged at length with startling abruptness into a large circle of dazzling light. Four great fires were burning close together, and round them, motionless and for the most part silent, in appearance almost apathetic, stood hundreds of dark shadows-men and women waiting for

news.

The silence and inaction of so large a crowd struck a chill to Lindo's heart. A tremor ran through him as he advanced with his companion towards a knot of a dozen rough fellows who stood together, some half-stripped, some muffled up in pilot-jackets or coarse shiny clothes. The crowd seemed to be watching them, and they spoke now and then to one another in a desultory expectant fashion, from which he judged they were persons in authority.

'It is a bad job-a very bad job!' his companion the doctor was saying nervously, when his attention, which had strayed for a moment, returned to its duty. Is there anything I can do yet?'

'Well, that depends, doctor,' answered one of the men, whose manner of speaking proved that he was not a mere working collier. There is no one up yet,' he explained, eyeing the doctor dubiously. But it does not exactly follow that you can do nothing. Some of us have just come up, and there is a shift of

men exploring down there now. Three bodies have been recovered, and they are at the foot of the shaft; and three poor fellows have been found alive, of whom one has since died. The other two are within fifty yards of the shaft, and as comfortable as we can make them. But they are bad-too bad to come up in a bucket; and we can rig up nothing bigger at present, so there they are fixed. The question is, will you go down to them?'

Mr. Keogh's face fell. He shook his head. He was no longer young, and to descend a sheer depth of six hundred yards in a bucket dangling at the end of a makeshift rope was not in his line. 'No, thank you,' he said, 'I could not do it, indeed.'

'Come, doctor,' the man persisted-he was the manager of a neighbouring colliery, as Lindo learned afterwards, 'you will be there in no time.'

'Just so,' said the surgeon dryly. I have no doubt I should go down fast enough. It is the coming back is the rub, you see, Mr. Peat. No, thank you, I could not.'

But the other still urged him. These poor fellows are about as bad as they can be, and you know if the mountain will not go to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain.’

'I know; and if it were a mountain, well and good,' Mr. Keogh answered, smiling in sickly fashion as his eye strayed to a black well-like hole close at hand-a mere hole in some loose planks surmounted by a windlass and fringed with ugly wreckage. But it is not. It is quite the other thing, you see.'

Mr. Peat shrugged his shoulders, and glanced at his companions rather in sorrow than surprise. Lindo, standing behind the doctor, saw the look. Till then he had stood silent. Now he pressed forward. 'Did I hear you say that one of the injured men died after he was found?' he asked.

'Yes, that is so,' the manager answered, looking keenly at him, and wondering who he was.

The others who are hurt-are their lives in danger?'

'I am afraid so,' the man replied reluctantly.

'Then I have a right to be with them,' the rector answered quickly. I am a clergyman, and I have hastened here, fearing this might be the case. But I have also attended an ambulance class, and I can dress a burn. Besides, I am a younger man than our friend here, and, if you will let me down, I will go.'

'By George, sir!' the manager exclaimed, looking round for approval and smiting his thigh heavily, 'you are a man as well as VOL. XVII.-NO. 101, N.S.

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a parson, and down you shall go, and thank you! You may make the men more comfortable, and any way you will put heart into them, for you have some to spare yourself. As for danger, there is none !-Jack!'-this in a louder voice to some one in the background-just twitch that rope! And get that tub up, will you? Look slippery now.'

Lindo felt a hand on his arm, and, obeying the silent gesture of the nearest gaunt figure, stepped aside. In a twinkling the man stripped off the parson's long coat and put on him the pilot-jacket from his own shoulders; a second man gave him a peaked cap of stiff leather in place of his soft hat; and a third fastened a pitlamp round his neck, explaining to him how to raise the wick without unlocking the lamp, and showing him that, if it swung too much on one side or were upset, its flame would expire of itself. And upon one thing Lindo was never tired of dwelling afterwards the kindly tact of these rough men; and how by seemingly casual words, and even touches, the roughest sought to encourage him, while ignoring the possibility of his feeling alarm.

Meanwhile Mr. Keogh, standing in a state of considerable perplexity and discomfiture where the rector had left him, heard a well-known voice at his elbow, and turned to find that Gregg had arrived. The younger doctor was not the man to be awed into silence, and, as he came up, was speaking loudly. 'Hallo, Mr. Keogh!' he said. 'I heard you were before me. Have you got them all in hand? Cuts or burns mostly, eh?' "They are not above ground yet,' Mr. Keogh answered. He and Gregg were not on speaking terms, but such an emergency as this was allowed to override their estrangement.

6

Oh, then we shall have to wait,' Gregg answered, looking round on the scene with a mixture of curiosity and professional aplomb. 'I wish I had spared my horse. Any other medical man here?'

6

No; and they want one of us to go down in the bucket,' Keogh explained. There are some injured men at the foot of the shaft. I have a wife and children, and I thought that perhaps you

6

'Would not mind breaking my neck!' Gregg retorted with decision. No, thank you, not for me! I hope to have a wife and children some day, and I will keep my neck for them. Go down!' he repeated, looking round with extreme scorn. "Pooh! No one can expect us to do it! It is these people's business, and

they are used to it; but there is not a sane man in the kingdom, besides, would go down that place after what has just happened. It is a quarter of a mile as a stone falls, if it is an inch!'

"It is all that,' the other assented, feeling much relieved. 'And a height makes me giddy,' Dr. Gregg added.

'I feel the same of late,' said his elder.

'No, every man to his trade,' Gregg concluded, settling the matter to his satisfaction. Let them bring them up, and we will doctor them. But while they are below groundWho is this?'

Hallo!

The next moment he uttered an oath of surprise and anger. As his eye wandered round, it had lit on Lindo coming forward to the shaft; and the doctor recognised him in spite of his disguise. One look, and Gregg would cheerfully have given ten pounds either to have had the rector away, or to have arrived a little later himself. He had calculated in his own mind that, if no outsider went down, he could scarcely be blamed for taking care of himself. But, if the rector went down, the matter would wear a different aspect. And Dr. Gregg saw this so clearly that he turned pale with rage and chagrin, and swore again under his breath.

CHAPTER XXI.

IN PROFUNDIS.

THE young clergyman's face, as he walked forward to the shaft, formed, if the truth be told, no index to his mind. For, while it remained calm and even wore a faint smile, he was inwardly conscious of a strong desire to take hold of anything which presented itself, even a straw. Nevertheless, he stepped gravely into the tub, amid a low murmur; and, clutching the iron bar above it, felt himself at a word of command lifted gently into the air, and swung over the shaft. For an uncomfortable five seconds or so he remained stationary; then there was a jerkanother—and the dark figures, the line of faces, and the glare of the fires leapt suddenly above his head. He found himself in darkness dropping through space with a swift, sickening motion, as of one falling away from himself. His heart rose into his throat. There was a loud buzzing in his ears, and still above this he heard the dull rattling sound of the rope being paid out. Every other