There were two trucks on Hope’s side of the hall—­the empty one in question, and one that was full of coal.  Both stood about two yards from Hope’s side of the hall.  Hope turned the empty truck and brought it parallel to the other; then he nailed two sacks together, and fastened them to the coal truck and the debris; then he laid sacks upon the ground for Grace to lie on, and he kept two sacks for himself, and two in reserve, and he took two and threw them to Ben Burnley.

“I give you two, and I keep two myself,” said he.  “But my daughter shall have a room to herself even here; and if you molest her I’ll brain you with this hammer.”

“I don’t want to molest her,” said Burnley.  “It ain’t my fault she’s here.”

Then there was a gloomy silence, and well there might be.  The one lamp, twinkling faintly against the wall, did but make darkness visible, and revealed the horror of this dismal scene.  The weary hours began to crawl away, marked only by Hope’s watch, for in this living tomb summer was winter, and day was night.

The horrors of entombment in a mine have, we think, been described better than any other calamity which befalls living men.  Inspired by this subject novelists have gone beyond themselves, journalists have gone beyond themselves; and, without any affectation, we say we do not think we could go through the dismal scene before us in its general details without falling below many gifted contemporaries, and adding bulk without value to their descriptions.  The true characteristic feature of this sad scene was not, we think, the alternations of hope and despair, nor the gradual sinking of frames exhausted by hunger and thirst, but the circumstance that here an assassin and his victims were involved in one terrible calamity; and as one day succeeded to another, and the hoped for rescue came not, the hatred of the assassin and his victims was sometimes at odds with the fellowship that sprang out of a joint calamity.  About twelve hours after the explosion Burnley detected Hope and his daughter eating, and moistening their lips with the tea and a spoonful of brandy that Hope had poured into it out of his flask to keep it from turning sour.

“What, haven’t you a morsel for me?” said the ruffian, in a piteous voice.

Hope gave a sort of snarl of contempt, but still he flung a crust to him as he would to a dog.

Then, after some slight hesitation, Grace rose quietly and took the smaller can, and tilled it with tea, and took it across to him.

“There,” said she, “and may God forgive you.”

He took it and stared at her.

“It ain’t my fault that you are here,” said he; but she put up her hand as much as to say, “No idle words.”

* * * * *