Black Diamonds: A Novel

CHAPTER XXIII
FINANCIAL INTRIGUE

His excellency took the paper, probably believing it was a petition to grant her an engagement. He held it in his hand while he smilingly assured her that the matter was as good as concluded. It is, however, more than probable that when he gave a hurried glance at the contents his face assumed its official expression; he saw it did not refer to an operatic engagement, but to the grant for the Bondavara Railway. Seeing this, it is likely that his excellency got up at once, and, hat in hand, explained to his lovely hostess how distressed he felt not to be in a position to comply with her wishes, as there were insuperable objections in the way, great opposition from the legislative body, and yet greater opposition in the Upper House, where Prince Sondersheim was working heaven and earth against the Bondavara Railway, and, therefore, from political and financial reasons, from the condition of the country and many other causes, it would be impossible, or almost impossible, to hold out any hope of granting the Bondavara Railway a guarantee from the government. That then his excellency made a profound bow and left the room may be considered a fact. It is psychologically certain that he descended the staircase with a frown of vexation on his face, and that he murmured between his teeth:

"If I had known that I was going to talk to the banker's wife I should never have come here." As he got into his carriage—and this is historical—he banged the door with such violence that the glass window was shattered in pieces.

At the very hour when this interview was taking place a committee-meeting was being held in Prince Theobald's palace, which had for its object to lay before the shareholders the necessity of paying the third instalment—a critical operation, this attack upon the pockets of the public. The Bondavara Railway now played its part. Felix Kaulmann announced he had every confidence that in a couple of weeks it would be a fact. The deputation from Bondathal had caused a sensation, besides which the company had the interest of a very influential person, who could persuade his excellency to do anything, even give the grant for the railroad. The finely cut, aristocratic face of the president did not betray by a sign that he knew who this person was.

Kaulmann never for a moment suspected that Eveline told the prince the names of all the visitors who came to the palace during his absence, and that they were admitted through the little door. He would have called such stupidity by an ugly name.

While the meeting was sitting a note was brought to Kaulmann, who at once recognized Eveline's writing. He read the letter quickly, then laid it on the table with a discontented air.

"What is that?" asked the prince, pointing to a roll of paper.

It was the unsigned document which Eveline had returned.

Kaulmann wrote on a slip of paper, "Another hitch in that damned railway."

The prince said to himself, "Then his wife has again escaped." Then he bent over Kaulmann, and, laying his hand upon his shoulder, whispered to him:

"My dear friend, one doesn't get everything by a pair of black eyes."

Spitzhase was the secretary of the meeting. After this little scene he wrote upon a piece of paper, and, twisting it up, handed it to Kaulmann. Kaulmann read it; then tore it in small pieces and shrugged his shoulders.

"I know all that," he said, sulkily. "I don't want any advice."

The committee went away in bad humor with one another. The expense of bringing the deputation from Bondathal had been two thousand gulden, and this comedy had been of no use. The last stake should now be played. Csanta had determined not to pay the third instalment. He would sell all his shares at the price quoted and refill his casks with silver. On the day of the Proclamation, however, he received a letter from Spitzhase, which ran as follows:

Csanta believed in Spitzhase as in an oracle, and with reason. All happened as he said. Immediately upon the issue of the Proclamation, and when the shares were a little flat, Kaulmann appeared in X——, and offered him forty-five florins exchange upon his shares. But the old Greek was firm, not one would he part with; he would rather take his last cask to Vienna and empty its contents than part with one share.

He was rewarded for his firmness. Two days later he read in the newspaper how generously both Houses had voted a grant to the Bondavara Railway.

His excellency the prime-minister had himself pleaded for the cause in the Lords and Deputies House, and had proved conclusively that, from the political point of view, from the present favorable condition of the money market, as also from the side of the landed interest, from every point of view—strategical, financial, co-operative, and universal—the government guarantee for the Bondavara Railway was absolutely necessary, and, as a natural consequence, the motion was carried. Prince Waldemar, indeed, opposed it vigorously, but his following was small, so nobody minded him.

At the next audit of the Bondavara Company's accounts presented to the shareholders there appeared under the heading of expenditure this remarkable entry: "Expense of foundations, forty thousand gulden."

"What does this mean?" said the shareholders, with one voice.

Kaulmann whispered something to the man nearest him; he passed the whisper on, whereupon every one nodded his head, and tried to think it was all right. So it appeared to be, for after the government grant to the railway the Bondavara shares rose to seventy florins above par. Nothing could be more convincing. Csanta had punch at dinner, and got drunk for joy.

Some evenings later Eveline met his excellency in the green-room of the Treumann Theatre. The minister thought it was time to press for payment of his services.

"My dear lady," he said, "have I not obeyed your wishes in regard to the Bondavara Railway?"

Eveline made him a low courtesy. She wore the costume of the Duchess of Gerolstein.

"I am eternally indebted to your excellency," she said. "To-morrow evening I shall blow you forty thousand kisses."

At the words "forty thousand" his excellency grew red. He turned on his heel, and for the future Eveline was relieved from his attentions; but it was also quite certain that she had lost all chance of an engagement at the Opera-house. She might sing like a nightingale, but her petition would never be signed.

CHAPTER XXIV
THE BONDAVARA RAILWAY

Said Prince Waldemar: "You have chosen to put yourself at the head of my enemies. You have done your utmost to trump my best card. You have allied yourself with that man Kaulmann, with whom I am on bad terms. I sought your granddaughter in marriage; you promised she should be my wife, and then you sent her away from Vienna. You have invented all manner of pretexts to keep her at Pesth, and now the secret is out—she is betrothed to Salista. I had a fancy for a pretty little woman, and just to prevent my having her you invite her to your palace and forbid her to receive my visits. Worse than all, you have given over your only unmortgaged property, Bondavara, to a swindling company, who want to set themselves over me; and you have become their president. You have schemed and jockeyed the government into giving the guarantee for a railway that won't pay two per cent. You haven't an idea how you are implicated in these transactions. I pity you—for I have always felt esteem for you—and I intend to set myself the task of regulating your affairs some day. Meantime take care, for if I succeed in upsetting the human pyramid upon whose shoulders you stand the greatest fall will be yours."

Of all this long harangue Prince Theobald only gathered the fact that Angela had chosen the Marquis Salista for her husband, and had never written to tell him. She let him hear it from another.

The Bondavara Railway was being pressed forward; it was nearly finished. There was no further need for a woman's black-diamond eyes. They had done their work. One day Eveline visited her husband. Felix received her with apparent satisfaction.

"I have come," she said, "to ask you a question. Prince Theobald has been for some days so sad; it is melancholy to see his distress. Have you any idea of its cause?"

"I have. His granddaughter, the Countess Angela, is married, and her husband, the Marquis Salista, is taking steps to put the prince under restraint, on account of the foolish manner in which he is squandering his fortune."

"And much of this foolish extravagance is spent on me."

"You are really wonderfully sharp, Eveline."

"I shall put an end to his spending his money on me. I shall tell the prince that I must leave his palace. I shall be always grateful to him; he has been a benefactor to me—and so have you. I ought to have mentioned you first. You have had me educated; you have taught me a great deal. I have to thank you for being what I am. I can earn my own living, thanks to you. I mean to become a real artist. But I must leave Vienna; I do not care to remain here any longer."

"I think, Eveline, you have decided well, and our minds have really a wonderful sympathy. I was about to advise the very course to you. By all means, leave Vienna; by all means, make use of your talents, and take up work seriously. I shall continue to do my duty as your husband. I shall take you to Paris; I shall settle myself in my house there on purpose to be of assistance to you. You will make a hit there, I know, and we shall be always good friends."

In spite of her previous experience of this man's character, Eveline was weak enough to be touched by his words and to blame herself for having done him injustice, for it was a great sacrifice on his part to leave Vienna for her sake. She could never have supposed that this sacrifice was part of his well-considered plan for ridding himself of her. She had played her part in making his fortune, and now she could go where she chose—to her native coal-pit if she liked. Once in Paris, he would be able to say, "Madam, you are here under the French law, and as no civil ceremony has passed between us, you are not my wife; you are at liberty to call yourself unmarried."

Felix had another reason for settling himself in Paris. It was here he counted on carrying out the second part of his programme. Now that the Bondavara Railway was nearly finished, the castles in the air of the Abbé Samuel were beginning to take shape; the next step should be a gigantic loan in the interest of the Church. This loan would be another means of aggrandizing the house of Kaulmann; its reputation would be world-wide. Already Kaulmann's name was of European celebrity; he belonged to the stars of the first order in the financial world. From being a baron of the stock-exchange he had become a prince. If he succeeded in effecting this loan he would be a king of the money-market, before whose name even that of Rothschild would pale.

A halo was also beginning to surround the name of the Abbé Samuel. The government had begun to see that this popular orator held the people in his hand, and could lead them as he chose. The people looked upon him as their benefactor, a man whose influence could get them benefits. Was not the Bondavara Railway a proof of this? The twelve Halinacoats were firmly persuaded that the abbé had carried back in his pocket the government grant. The clerical party acknowledged him as a new light. In Rome he was lauded for his zeal in the papal cause. If he was made bishop, which was almost a certainty, he would be the first Hungarian prelate who had taken his seat in the Austrian House of Lords. The minister would stare when he found his scheme for the secularization of Hungarian Church property met by another scheme from the new bishop, which, while proposing a gigantic loan upon these same Church lands, had for its object the elevation of the Holy See by these very means. The money-markets of France, Belgium, and the Roman States would vie with one another in promoting the loan, and the pontiff would look upon the man who had conceived such a project as the saviour of the pontificate; his name should be written in letters of gold. In Hungary, also, the scheme would be favorably received as a means of saving the church property already threatened, for the government dared not refuse this alternative.

Moreover, the primate was an old man; the pope was still older. All the wheels were in readiness; the machine could now be put in motion.

The day the first locomotive steamed out of the Bondavara station the Abbé Samuel might say to himself, "The way to Rome is clear." It would be also safe to prophesy that on this day Ivan Behrend's ruin would be complete.

This railroad would bring the goods of the Joint-Stock Company into the markets of the world, where they could compete with the coal of Prussia and the English coal. But, it will be said, Ivan had the same chance; his coals were equally good, and the giant with the seven-mile boots would carry his coal as well as his enemies'. But here was where the shoes pinched. What was of use to the company was destruction to him.

The railway was not to run through the valley where his mine was situated, although that line was the best and most natural course to take; instead of which mountains had to be made level, tunnels had to be bored through the hills, to avoid his colliery and to carry the rails close to the company's mine. In consequence of this, Ivan would be obliged to make a circuit of a half-day's journey to get to the railway, and so the freightage to the station made his goods five or six per cent. dearer than those of the company. For him, therefore, the railroad was a crushing blow.

In the meantime the end of the year drew near, the time when the miners were to receive their share from the profits. But profit there was none. Neither coal nor iron had any sale. The company's low prices had taken every customer from Ivan.

Any one who possesses ready money can always say, even if he loses, that he wins; the common people call this eating your own entrails. Ivan had a sum by him, which he had carefully gathered in better days. It amounted, all told, to several thousands, and he calculated he could hold his own against his giant rivals for at least ten years. He forgot that the giants were cunning as well as strong, and that they did not despise the smallest artifice.

When the railway directors issued their prospectus, inviting all contractors to send in contracts for iron rails, etc., Ivan thought to himself, "Now, I will have some fun. The shareholders of the Joint-Stock Company offer their iron six per cent. cheaper than it costs them. I will offer to the railway directors to deliver iron rails at ten per cent. cheaper than they cost me. I shall lose fifty thousand gulden, but I shall have the satisfaction of punishing my neighbors for their folly in lowering the price of the raw material."

Simple fool! Just as an honorable gentleman imagines that when a letter is sealed no one would venture to open it, so Ivan thought that all the offers were read together, and that the most advantageous to the company was accepted.

Good gracious! nothing of the kind.

It is always settled beforehand who is to have the contract. When the proposals come in it sometimes happens that some one makes a yet lower offer than that of the protégé, and this last is then told to take pen and ink and write an offer proposing to give the goods half per cent. lower than the offer made by the outsider.

This is a well-known trick, and it is only men like Ivan, whose minds are occupied with petrifactions and the stars, who are in ignorance that such things are done.

The contract offered by the shareholders was half per cent. lower than the one offered by Ivan.

But even this rebuff didn't daunt him. Two and two make four, and those who sin against multiplication must come to ruin sooner or later.

Ivan continued making in his workshop iron bars and rails. He accumulated a store in his magazines. Some time they would be wanted.

The Bondavara Railroad was to be made.

Csanta wanted to sell his houses in X——; the whole street was for sale. He said he was going to live in Vienna, and to fill his office of one of the directors to the company. He was to receive a large salary, and to have little or nothing to do. He had changed all his gold into papers—there is no use nowadays for houses or land or cattle or mines; nothing is good but paper. It wants neither groom nor manure nor pay nor machinery.

Therefore, he wished to sell the whole street. Fortunately, there was so little money in X—— that the inhabitants of the whole town put together couldn't produce enough money to buy a poor little street.

The Bondavara Railway was in progress. Along the line the navvies were working like a swarm of ants; they shoved wheelbarrows from morning until night; they dug the ground, blew up rocks, bored mountains, rammed plugs into water-sources, hewed stones, dammed rivers.

In the dark mouth of the Bondavara mine one man stood immovable. He was ever watching the work. His gloomy, threatening face was fixed steadily upon a windlass.

This man was Peter Saffran. He held in his hand a lump of coal, and as he looked back from the noisy landscape to the remnant of trees his eyes seemed to say, "Thou art the cause of all this tumult, this wealth, this splendor; thou art a living power—thou!" And he hurled the coal against the wall.

CHAPTER XXV
THE POOR DEAR PRINCE

"I cannot say so. If I were ambitious I should be more diligent. I want my freedom. I don't want my wings clipped. I like to feel I can use them as I choose."

"That is rather a dangerous experiment for any one so young and pretty as you are."

"One never falls so low that one cannot rise again."

"Where did you learn that?"

"From what I see every day."

"You are resolved to leave me?"

"I am—I am—I am!" Eveline repeated these words impatiently.

"Then I had better free you from my disagreeable society as soon as possible," said the prince, taking up his hat. Then, with an ironical bow, he added, "Forgive me, madam, for the weary hours I must have imposed upon you."

Eveline, with an impatient stamp of her foot, turned her back upon him. The prince, when he had got as far as the anteroom, found that he had forgotten his walking-stick in the drawing-room. It had been a Christmas present from Eveline, and he would not leave it with her. He went back to fetch it.

He opened the door gently, and he saw a sight that surprised him. Eveline still stood with her back to him. She had in her hands the stick he had come for, which she kissed two or three times, sobbing bitterly. The prince withdrew gently. Everything was made clear to him. Eveline quarrelled with him to make the separation less hard for him. She pretended to be mean and ungrateful in order that he might forget her more easily. Why did she do this?

The next day the prince found the solution of this riddle. His servant brought him the key of Eveline's apartments. The lady had left by the very earliest train. The prince hastened to the palace, and he then understood why it was that Eveline had left. She had taken nothing; everything was there. She was a pearl among women. A lock of her hair was wound round the handle of the walking-stick—her beautiful hair, which fell from the crown of her head to her feet.

Eveline arrived in Paris before Kaulmann. It had been settled between them that she should stop at a hotel until he arranged where she should live.

Some weeks later Felix came and said: "Your house is ready for you. Will you come and see it?"

Eveline drove with Felix to her new home, which was in the Rue Sebastopol, one of the best situations in Paris, the first floor. As she came into the apartment her heart beat. Everything was familiar to her eyes—the cherry-colored curtains, the carpets, the dove-colored panels, the black marble fireplace, the oval frames in china, the window looking into the garden—all as in Vienna. The same pictures, the same service of silver, the wardrobes, the jewel-cases, even to the glove which she had left upon the table.

The tears fell from her eyes as she murmured to herself, "The good, kind prince!"

Felix, however, with perfect aplomb, took all the credit to himself, and asked her, "Have I not arranged your apartment to your taste?"

Eveline made him no answer. Her thoughts were with the good, kind prince, her best friend. To him she owed her engagement at the Opera-house in Paris, the wreaths that were thrown to her on her first appearance, the carriage she drove in every day. All was due to the paternal interest of Prince Theobald, who, from the day he called her his daughter, had never ceased to care for her as his child.

CHAPTER XXVI
DIES IRÆ

You see, Ivan's thoughts were as black as the landscape, and suited to its gloom. His road from the forge to the mine led him past the workmen's houses, and as he passed one of these a miner came stumbling out of the door. The house was a wine-shop. The miner had his back towards Ivan, who did not recognize him, but he noticed that the man had great difficulty in walking straight.

"I wonder who it is that has got drunk so early in the day?" thought Ivan, and hastened after the man to find out who he was. When he got up with him he saw, to his surprise, that it was Peter Saffran. This struck Ivan unpleasantly; he recalled how, on the day when Evila had eloped, Saffran had sworn never again to touch brandy; he knew also that Peter had kept this oath. He recollected also, but imperfectly, that when he said that he wouldn't drink any more he had let fall some threat. Well, it didn't much matter; if he got drunk, that was his affair. But why did he come to Ivan's village to get drunk? Why didn't he go to the tavern in his own colony?

Ivan hailed the man. "Good-morning, Peter."

Peter did not return the greeting; he stared like a stupid dog who doesn't know his own master. He looked at Ivan with a wild eye, he pressed his lips together, and his nostrils extended. He drew his cap down over his eyes.

Ivan asked him, "Has the choke-damp got into your pit?"

No answer from Peter. He shoved his cap from off his forehead, and, opening his mouth to its full extent, bent his face to that of Ivan, and let his hot, spirit-laden breath blow over him. Then, without saying a syllable, he turned away, and set off running in the direction of the company's mine.

The heated breath of the man, with the sickening smell of bad brandy, sent a shudder through Ivan's frame. He stood still, staring after the runaway, who, when he had got a certain distance, stopped and looked back. Ivan could see his face distinctly. He looked like a madman; his lips hung apart, like those of a mad dog; his white teeth gleamed in contrast to his red gums. His whole appearance was so strange and desperate that Ivan laid hold of the revolver in his pocket. For one moment the thought passed through his mind that he would be doing a good work in freeing the world of such a creature, but on second thoughts he let him go unharmed, and continued his way to the mine to look after the ventilators.

In the vault the proportion between the hydrogen and the air was three to seven. Ivan forbade any work to be done in the mine, or any pumping out of the dangerous gas. He employed his men in the open air, removing the coal that was required, and only allowed those to remain below who had to look after the air-pumps.

He remained the whole day on the spot, controlling everything and keeping a close watch. Towards evening he left the mine and returned to his house. Everything was apparently safe. It was a nasty, foggy, gloomy evening; the state of the atmosphere reacted upon the mind and body alike. When nature is out of sorts, man suffers; when the sky is overcast, he, too, is gloomy. And when the earth is sick, when worms and mould destroy the fruit, when the harvest is ruined by blight, and the cattle are decimated by pestilence—above all, when the noxious vapors from the coal-mines rise to the surface and poison the very air—then men sicken and die.

All through the day Ivan had felt cold shudders running over his whole body. His limbs were contracted by that unpleasant feeling called goose-skin, and when he got home he shivered, although his room was warm. He was restless, uneasy. He could occupy himself with nothing; everything palled upon him. The worst symptom of all, he could not even work.

When a man refuses food or drink, when he does not care for the company of a pretty woman, when his club wearies him, these are unhealthy signs; but when he turns away from work, and finds no longer any interest in his usual occupation, then it is time to send for the physician.

Ivan's head throbbed, yet he could not sleep, and to stay awake was torture. He lay down, and with a resolute effort closed his eyes. A panorama of past, present, and future kept dancing before him. Peter Saffran's hot, stinking breath seemed to breathe again in his nostrils, and the very horror brought back to his memory the man's long-forgotten words:

"No more during my life shall I drink brandy—only once; and when I do, and when you smell from my breath that I have been drinking, or see me coming out of the public-house, then take my advice and stop safe at home, for on that day no man shall know in what manner he shall die."

Who cares for the threat of a drunken man? Let me sleep. No, the drunken man would not allow Ivan to sleep; his breath was there. Faugh! it made him sick. His blear-eyed, pallid face was there bending over the bed, looking into Ivan's eyes with his blood-shot eyes; his open mouth and shut teeth came quite close to the sleeper, who, vainly beating his arms in the air, tried to drive away this horrid nightmare.

Ah, what is that sound? A crack like the crack of doom awoke Ivan; not alone awoke him, but threw him violently out of bed and on to the floor, where he lay stunned.

His first consecutive thoughts were, "The choke-damp has exploded! My mine is in ruins!" This was enough to get him on his legs and to send him out in the darkness—darkness, raven-black darkness, the stillness only broken by a whistling sound in the air. Ivan stood for a moment wondering. He felt the earth swaying under his feet; he heard a subterranean grumbling. There! the pitch-dark night was suddenly illumined; a bright pillar of fire rose out of the Bondavara Company's mine. At the same moment another fearful explosion was heard, worse than the last. The windows of the house were shattered in a thousand pieces, the chimneys, the roofs fell in. The pressure of the air forced Ivan back and threw him against the door of his own house. By the strong light of the demoniacal pillar he could see his own workmen all on their knees with a horrified expression upon their ghastly faces. Women and children were gathered at the doors of the houses, but the terror was so great that every one was speechless.

The entire valley glowed like the crater of a volcano. It vomited forth a rain of fire-sparks, as in Gomorrah. The flames reached almost to the clouds, and heaven sent forth clap upon clap of thunder, the like of which in the most terrible thunder-storm had never been heard.

Two minutes later the flames were extinguished. The whole valley was again enveloped in pitch-darkness, only over the company's mine floated a filmy white cloud.

"The neighboring mine has exploded!" shrieked Ivan. "Help! help!" He never remembered that it was his enemy's mine; he only thought that there, in the bowels of the earth, a fearful, indescribably fearful, calamity had happened. "Help! help!" he cried, and ran to the alarm-bell, at which he pulled with all the strength of his body.

His own men came rushing in hot haste, all repeating to one another, as if it were something new, "The neighboring mine has exploded!"

Then followed a significant pause. The men carrying lanterns surrounded Ivan, and looked at him questioningly, waiting for him to speak.

How had he guessed their thoughts?

Those who under God's free heavens drew their breath were bound to go to the rescue of those who lay buried underground, and who perchance still lived. Here it was no case of friend or foe. They were human beings; that was enough.

"We must get the ventilators, the well-buckets to work!" called Ivan. "Let each man bring a thick cloth to tie over his mouth. Bring crow-bars, cords, ladders, india-rubber tubes, hose-pipes. The women only are to remain behind. Forward, my men!"

He threw on an old coat, seized a strong iron bar, which he carried on his shoulder, placed himself at the head of his men, and led the way to the company's mine.

It was not easy to force an entrance into the works. The proprietors had set up all manner of barricades in order to prevent Ivan's carts from making any use of the new road. On the gates there were boards with "No trespassing. No one to pass this way without a written order."

No one now minded these orders. If a door or a gate impeded their progress, Ivan thrust his iron rod through it and soon made a passage, through which his men rushed pell-mell. The miners did not pause to harness any horses to the machines. They harnessed themselves, while others shoved behind, and drove them on over sticks and stones down to the mouth of the pit. Like an army of lunatics the party of rescuers rushed on through the night, making their way as best they could by means of the lanterns fastened to their waistbands. Soon, however, the darkness was again illumined. The forge nearest to the pit, and consequently the most exposed to the fiery heat, blew up suddenly, and the flames from the heating-oven filled the air with a red glow. The miners avoided, however, the direction in which it burned, as it would be impossible to predict the direction which the molten metal would take.

When they reached the pit an awful spectacle presented itself. The ventilation-ovens which were placed over the shaft-mouth were gone. The bricks and tiles were scattered in a thousand directions all over the fields. The large windlass of cast-iron lay on the ground at a considerable distance from its former position, and of the conical, bell-shaped buildings hardly a stone was left. Only one wall was still standing; the iron fasteners hung from its side. The northern entrance to the pit had fallen in. The handsome stone gates lay in ruins. Stones, beams, iron bars, coals were all mixed up together in heterogeneous confusion, as if a volcano had vomited them out.

The air was filled with the cries of weeping women. Hundreds upon hundreds of women and children, probably widows and orphans, held up their hands to heaven and wept. Under their feet their husbands, their fathers, brothers, lovers lay buried, and no one could help them.

More from recklessness than from actual courage some men had already attempted to go down into the pit. They had been at once stunned by the pressure of the gas, and now their comrades, at the risk of their own lives, were trying to drag them out by cords and slings. Already one lay on the grass, while the women stood round him wringing their hands.

Ivan now began to make his plans. "In the first place," he said, "no one is to venture near the pit. Let all wait until I return."

He took his way towards the house of the directors. He forgot that he had sworn never to hold any communication with Rauné. In any case, he was not to be found. In the next town there was high festival. The directors of the new railway had given a banquet in honor of the completion of the tunnel. Rauné was there. Ivan, however, met the second engineer coming out of his house. He was a cool, phlegmatic man, and consoled himself with the trite reflection that these things happened everywhere. "The gates must be rebuilt," he said. "The pit roads must again be re-made, and probably we shall have to sink another shaft. It will cost a lot of money. Voila tout!"

"How many men are below?" asked Ivan.

"Probably about a hundred and fifty."

"Only! And what is to be done for them?"

"It will be a hard job to get them out, for they were at work at the passage which we were making between the north pit and the east to improve the ventilation."

"Therefore there is no other entrance to the pit but the one which has fallen in?"

"No; and the eastern shaft is also in ruins. The flames came from there; you must have seen them."

"Yes; and I couldn't understand how it was that the second explosion followed the first after an interval of a few minutes."

"That is easily explained. The communicating wall was already so thin that the explosion in the north pit blew it into fragments; the gas in the east pit undoubtedly was not kindled by the flames, for they had already gone out, but by the strong pressure of the air, which was heated to fever-heat by the accumulation of coal, and which, therefore, exploded through the shaft. So it is when you put sand into the barrel of a gun; the powder bursts the barrel before it throws out the sand."

It was plain that the engineer took a very cold-blooded view of the whole affair, and that the design for the new stone gate was a matter of more interest to him than the hundred and fifty lives which were in jeopardy. Ivan saw there was little assistance to be got from him.

"Before we can attempt the rescue of the men who are buried in the pit," he said, "we must pump the gas out of the opening of the cavern. Where is your air-pump?"

"Up there," returned the engineer, pointing to the sky; "that is to say, if it hasn't fallen down."

"You have no portable ventilator?"

"We never contemplated the necessity of having one."

"I have brought mine, if we can adjust it."

"I would gladly know how that can be done. If the ventilator has a copper tube, it would be impossible to introduce it through all the zigzag of the rubbish and general wreck; if it has an india-rubber pipe it would be too weak, and wouldn't stand being shoved forward."

"Some one must carry it into the pit."

"Some one?" repeated the engineer, with an air of amazement. "Look yonder; they are drawing up the third man who was foolish enough to venture down there; he is dead, like the other two!"

"No, none of them are dead; they will soon recover consciousness; they are stifled by the foul air."

"All the same, I can hardly believe that you will find a man mad enough to be the first to carry a tube fifty steps through all the wreckage."

"I have already found the man. I shall do it."

The engineer shrugged his shoulders, but he made no effort to dissuade him.

Ivan went back to the men, who meantime had been getting ready for work. He called the oldest miner on one side.

"Paul," he said, "some one must carry the india-rubber tube of the ventilator into the mouth of the pit."

"Good. Let us draw lots."

"We shall do nothing of the kind. I shall go. You are all husbands and fathers with families. You have wives and children to provide for. I have no one. How long can a man hold out in that foul air without drawing his breath?"

"A hundred beats of his pulse; no longer."

"Good. Fetch me the pipe. Bind a cord round my body and hold the other end. When you see that I no longer carry the pipe, draw the cord slowly back, but take care to draw slowly, in case that I should have fainted and that a sudden pull might strangle me."

Ivan loosened the woollen band from his waist, steeped it in a vessel of vinegar, and wrung it out and wrapped his face in it, so that his nose and mouth were covered. He then bound the cord firmly round his body, took the foremost end of the india-rubber pipe upon his shoulder, and began to make his way through the rubbish and débris at the pit's mouth.

The old miner called after him, in a broken voice: "Count the seconds. Fifty for going, fifty for coming back."

Ivan vanished behind the ruins. The miners took off their caps and folded their hands. The old man held the fingers of his right hand on the wrist of his left and counted his pulse. He had already counted over fifty and the other end of the pipe had not moved. It had passed sixty and was near seventy when suddenly it was pulled forward. Ivan had penetrated into the deadly atmosphere. The old miner wiped the perspiration from his brow. He counted eighty, ninety, a hundred seconds. They shall never see him again. Then the pipe remained steady.

Now they began to draw the rope. It was slack, and not tightened by any burden. Ivan was, therefore, so far safe; he was still walking, for the rope continued slack. Suddenly it got stiffer. Be careful now. The cord again slackened; the old miner counted a hundred and sixty seconds. Suddenly Ivan was seen coming out of the pit's mouth, supporting himself upon the fallen stones of the archway; but his strength failed, and as the men rushed to his assistance he tottered and fell into their arms. His face was like that of a dying man.

They rubbed him with vinegar, and the fresh air soon revived him. He sat up, and told them he was all right, but—

"The air down there is something awful," he said. "What is happening to those poor creatures who are buried below?"

It never occurred to him to remember that those poor creatures were the same ungrateful men who had deserted him, who had taken service with the men who had sworn to ruin him, who had formed a conspiracy against him, who were ready to murder him, who had sent a deputation to the enemies of their native land. Here they lay, buried in the depths of mother-earth, which thus revenged upon them their treachery. Ivan had forgotten their sin against him and their country, and his only thought was to save them if there was yet time.

Now that the ventilator had been set in motion, the work of rescue might begin; but all the same it was a terribly hard fight.

Ivan divided his band of men into two divisions. Each man was only to stay an hour at the dangerous work of clearing away the rubbish. Every one must have his face covered by a cloth steeped in vinegar. So soon as he began to feel faint he was to be carried away by his comrades.

When the day began to break the wreck of the fallen entrance had been moved to one side, but in the mouth of the pit the sun could not penetrate. The vault of slate-clay had fallen altogether to one side, so that Ivan, when he had carried the pipe into the pit, had found there was scarcely room to allow it to wind through the chasms. In the spot where he had placed the mouth of the pipe the vault was altogether destroyed.

It was an undertaking almost superhuman. What had been the work of weeks had to be done in so many days. And yet it must be done.

In their work of clearing away the rubbish Ivan's men had very little assistance from the company's men for this reason: the explosion had taken place at the time when the miners were relieved. When men are working in collieries it is usual to relieve them four times. It was the time of the midnight relief when the accident happened. One party of the miners had already gone down the shaft; they were undoubtedly suffocated. The other party were on their way out, and were killed at once by the explosion. There was another party who had only reached the resting-stage, where neither the flames nor the fragments could touch them. These men were buried alive. It therefore resulted that of all the company's miners only from twenty to thirty were available.

The men who worked the forge were forbidden by the director to give any help in the work of rescue. In all the ovens the metal was in a liquid state; if it was not attended to it would turn into rammers. The workmen give the name of ram, or rammer, to a solid mass of iron, which, in consequence of faulty melting, cannot be removed from the oven, and it and the oven have to be thrown away as useless lumber. The forge-work was urgently needed. The railway greaves had to be finished by a certain date, or a large fine would have to be paid. Ivan therefore had to set his men almost unaided to the task of clearing the pit. The women helped with all their strength. Their husbands, the bread-winners, were underneath the ruins.

What a terrible undertaking! In consequence of the falling in of the arches the roof had, at a distance of six feet, to be supported on plugs, and a sort of street made through the ruins, where at every corner a new enemy waited for the intrepid pioneers.

After the explosion the pit had been overflowed by water. The water-pipes had to be set to work, and where these were not sufficient the men were obliged to empty out the black slime in buckets, standing for hours in stinking mud, breathing foul air, threatened with death or mutilation from the constant falling of stones and wreckage. Undaunted by these obstacles, the men made their way step by step into the bowels of the earth.

In the afternoon Rauné arrived. In the middle of a convivial festival he had heard the news. He was raging. He came down the shaft and cursed all the dead men.

"The scoundrels! They have cost the company a million of money! What does it matter if they are all killed? Serves them right! Why should any of them be saved? Stuff and nonsense! Let them suffocate, the drunken dogs!"

The workers made him no answer. First, because they could not take up their time talking, and, secondly, because every man's mouth was covered. The clearing of a mine is very silent work.

But in the midst of his curses Rauné encountered one workman, who placed himself in front of him and confronted him with a steady look. This man was covered with mud and coal like the other laborers, his face was tied up with a cloth, and only the eyes were visible; they, too, were blackened with coal-dust, but Rauné knew by their expression that it was Ivan. No one who had ever looked into his eyes could forget him.

Rauné turned away without another word, and, in company with his engineer, left the pit. He interfered no further with Ivan's work.

Four days and four nights the men never ceased working. They triumphed over every obstacle and cut a pathway through every difficulty. During those four days Ivan never for one hour left the mine. He ate his meals sitting on a stone, and snatched an hour's sleep in some corner.

On the fourth day the workmen came upon one of the missing men. A man—no, but a mass, flattened against the wall, of flesh and bones, which had once been a man.

Some feet farther on there lay another body on the ground, but the head was nowhere to be seen. They tried to get him on one of the wheelbarrows which were for drawing coal, but he was all in fragments; splinters and shreds of that human body were sticking to everything.

Then they came upon the charred, blackened corpses of the men who had been burned. They were not recognizable.

Farther on there was a group of fifteen men crushed by a huge weight of slate stratum. This could not be moved, so they were left. It was more necessary to look after the living than the dead. Everywhere they found corpses; still the number of the missing was not complete.

The miners employed by the company told Ivan that if any of the men were still living they would be found at the resting-stage, where they left their coats before they began to work and fetched them again as they went up. In the passages, however, there had been such a total upset that the oldest hand could not find his way. In many places the explosion had torn down the partition wall, in other places the entrance was stopped up with rubbish, or the roof taken off some of the passages which led into the inner vaults. It was all in such utter confusion that no one could find out where the large vault lay.

At last it struck Ivan that underneath a mass of coal and slack he heard a faint, whimpering sound. He said to the men, "Dig this spot."

At once they set to work to clear away the rubbish, and as they cleared the company's men began to recognize different landmarks, which convinced them they were at the right place.

"Yes, here is the door which leads to the resting-stage." The pressure of the air had shut the door close, the side walls had fallen in, and so these, who had been safe from the conflagration, had been buried alive.

The whimpering cry for help, like that of an infant's wail, was heard now more distinctly. The door, too, was plainly visible, and as it was swung off its hinges Ivan took a light and peered into the dark cavern below.

No cry of joy reached him; the rescued men had not the strength to make a sound. They were about a hundred in all. They lay there still, speechless. Life had almost ebbed away, but not altogether. They had suffered the tortures of hunger and thirst, they had been suffocated by the foul air, broken-hearted, despairing. And now these human skeletons, when they saw the light, could hardly raise a finger to show they were alive. A heart-rending whimper, in which there was no human tone, rose from the hundred parched throats. When the explosion came they had been thrown upon their faces. Their lamps had gone out, and it would have been madness to relight them. They had remained in total darkness. After a little the danger of their situation increased. Soon they began to feel that the water was gradually—slowly at first—filling the space which served them as a refuge and a grave, and this space or vault was, they knew, a fathom deeper than the pit. They tried—for at first they were not so weak—to get hold of some boards and plugs that lay about, and out of these they made a sort of stage or platform, upon which they all clambered, and there waited for death—the death that might come either through hunger, foul air, or drowning. When their rescuers opened the door the water had reached the threshold and touched the bottom of the wooden stage.

Ivan directed that the poor creatures should be carried carefully and silently out of their living grave. They did not press forward, for they could not stand. Each man lay where he was, and waited until his turn came. The foretaste of death made every one tranquil. Some of them could not at first open their eyes, but all were alive, and Ivan could not help thinking how wonderful is the strength of human nature.

He had saved them all, but the work was not yet finished. How if, beyond the breach of which the engineer had spoken, there were more men waiting for deliverance? One thing they must ascertain positively—if the explosion had finished the work begun by the engineer's men, and had carried away the wall which had divided one pit from the other. If this were so, it would considerably lighten the work of those who had come to seek for the victims. At the opening of the breach-tunnel lay a man's body; he was such a charred, burned mass that he was unrecognizable. The dead man held in his hand his safety-lamp. It was open.

So this was the accursed one who had done the hellish deed, and it was human folly that had caused this demoniacal explosion.

The corpse was not recognizable, the clothing was burned to ashes. In his girdle, however, they found a small steel casket, and in this casket a gold watch; upon the enamelled back was the portrait of a lovely woman.

When the watch was brought to Ivan he recognized the portrait. It was Eveline. With the watch there was also a bank-note for a hundred gulden. It was half burned. Upon the back was written:

"A year ago to-day I received this money; to-day I pay it back." What a fearful repayment!

Ivan was now able to grasp the connection between the words and the acts of this terrible man, whose recollection of his own act of eating human flesh had prompted him to an unexampled and most horrid massacre. His threats after Evila's elopement, his entering into the company's service, the last occasion upon which he had drunk brandy, and the breath he had blown into Ivan's face. All was now explained. This was part of the drama. This man had a character such as Antichrist might be possessed of. His soul and body were full of concealed demons, who prompted him to take revenge of those who had offended him, ridiculed him, stolen from him, scorned him, treated him as a fool, insulted him with money, tempted him with luxuries, and taken advantage of his simplicity to pull him by the nose.

All of them should fall. He would pull the foundation-stone from under their feet, even if he dug his own grave in so doing. They should fall from their high estate—the banker, the pastor, the capitalist, the minister, and the actress.

In hell the demons could teach Peter nothing.

Ivan stood before the unsightly corpse deep in thought. In his heart there raged a wild conflict of passions. He also had been robbed, oppressed by the wealth of his enemies, his heart wounded by a hundred poisoned arrows, and this by the same men upon whom the revengeful hate of Peter Saffran had fallen. Ivan had come to their help. He had saved the lives and the property of his foes—at least, what they called their property; the monstrous treasure which lies in the very bowels of the earth does not, in truth, belong altogether to any man, but to all men; it is the treasure-trove of the state, destined to serve and minister to all ages.

And yet a great dread, an unconquerable fear, possessed Ivan. He dared not mention his fear to any one, for if he were to share his suspicion with any one of the workmen, who up to this had followed him obediently through every peril, they would, without another word, have turned their backs and fled for their lives.

The wire cylinder of Saffran's safety-lamp was filled to the very top with a red flame. This was a warning that the atmosphere was still charged with one-third of hydrogen gas, and that only two-thirds were of fresh air.

But there is an even greater danger to be feared than the pit-gas. Its fearful spirit had been laid; the victims lay silent upon the wheelbarrows. Yet another and a worse spirit lurks in ambush—a foe who goes about with closed eyes, whose presence is awful in its consequences: it is the carbon from the coals.

When the men had made the breach through the tunnel, they found, just as the engineer had said, that the explosion had burst through the partition wall, and that the débris had only to be removed, and the passage between the east and the north pits would be established. Not one of the workmen could remain long at this work. After some moments each one returned coughing, and complaining that in that place his safety-lamp would not burn.

In the pits the flame of the lamp filled the whole cylinder; this was not reassuring. But in the neighborhood of the ruins it would hardly burn; this was a far more serious sign.

The last miner who returned said that as he removed a large lump of coal such a terrible stench had penetrated through his mouth-protector that he had almost fainted. The smell was like that of putrid vegetable matter.

The old hands knew what this putrid stench signified. Paul suggested to Ivan that he should go and examine whence it came. Let him cover his mouth very carefully, and hasten back as soon as possible.

Ivan took his iron rod and his lamp, and went. Seizing hold of the rod with both hands, he struck it with all his strength into a mass of coal, upon which the lump rolled with a great noise into the adjoining space. He then fastened his lamp to the hook of his rod and pushed it into the hollow. The lamp went out at once, and as he looked from the darkness into the hollow, to his horror he saw in the next vault a red glow which lighted up the space. He knew at once there was no time to lose. He never paused to withdraw his rod, but rushed back to the men.

"The east pit is burning!" he cried.

No one answered, but the men seized hold of Ivan, and bore him with them out of the pit into the open air. Behind them followed the horrible stench—not merely that of foul air such as accompanies "bad weather," often with fatal effect; this was the more insidious carbon, that which kindles pit-fires, baffles the ingenuity of man, respects neither the brave nor the scientific, and which, when once it has begun, can never be turned back. There is nothing to do but to run for the bare life.

In a few minutes the pit was empty.

As they issued into the light of day they were surrounded by countless women and children, weeping and screaming in their joy at being reunited to their lost ones.

The engineer was also there. Ivan went straight to him. Taking the cloth from his mouth, he said:

"Do you know, sir, what is going on down there in your mine? Complete, utter ruin! The east pit is burning; it must have been alight some days, for the whole pit is red-hot. I shall never forget the sight. Now let me tell you what this means. It is not the hand of human wickedness, neither is it the avenging hand of God; it is altogether caused by the negligence of the overseer. You, who are a great scientist, know as well as I do that collieries take fire when sulphur gets mixed with coal-dust and is allowed to lie in a heap. It is always hot down there, and when the stuff is fanned by the air it lights of itself. Your pit is full of this dangerous burning mist. And now both your pit and my mine are finished. The colliery fire can never be extinguished. You have heard of the burning mountain of Dutweeler? A hundred and twenty years ago that coal-mine took fire; it is still burning. Here we shall experience another such tragedy. Good-morning."

The engineer only shrugged his shoulders; it was nothing to him.

Ivan shook the dust of the God-forsaken colony off his feet. He and his men returned to his own side of the mountain.

Meantime what had happened to his own mine? He had been absent four days and four nights, and had never given it a thought.