ONE IMPASSIONED HOUR.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9066, 15 April 1908, Page 2

ONE IMPASSIONED HOUR.

By OWEN MASTERS. or of " Repjn Lance," " Clyda's Love Dream," " Her Soldier Lover," " For Love of Marjorie," " The Mystery of Woodcroft," etc.

CHAPTER XXXIII. —Continued. "Oh, I was passing, and a—-er, a heavy shuwer-—you know. I will tell Miss Eastwood \o exneet you early to-morrow. The shaft, will be complete about midday—not a moment earlier." "Y'ju conscienceless villain?" said Charlie. "But I forigva you!" "Miss Eastwood is with her father at the moment " Warren continued, 1 "but I will undertake to have her speak to you in an hour, say. No, I can't promise sooner. Will you wait? I sha'n't be home till past ten o'clock. Good-bye, old chap. "An hour," thought Miriam; "how shall I endure it? And then the waiting-the waiting." Her father was speaking: "We may be helped by Dame Fortune if the spiteful old witch is tiieJ of dealing out vinegar and rue. And while we are away, Miriam, you can talk to Allan over the phone. Dinner dinner! Ready, did you say, Hadley? I don't believe that I can eat a mouthful." The meal was disposed of in record time. Everybody was on tender hooks, and the anxiety was gnawing at their vitals with sharpened teeth. Faces were white and lined, and eyes glittered restlessly. At last Charlie Eastwood rose from the table, and Miriam flew into his arms. "Oh, papa, there is no danger for you?" she half-sobbed. "Not an atom. I know every foot of the workings." He looked up and spoke to the men. "To my mind the thing is as simple as A, B, C. Jack Berrington waa knocked into the cell; the bottom was out uf the cell, and he went through. When he struck the earth he was knocked silly, and roiled along the incline. It's a pretty sharp one. tie may have recovered a bit, and wandered into the maze of crisscross cuttings. In the meantime the cave-in was repaired. I can't proced much farther on conjecture, but I am certain of one thing, boys; we shall find him—his body, I mean. Come along." He embraced his daughter again, and murmured: "Heaven may soon begin to deal out a few blessings. Pray for us, j little girl." "OK, I will—l Willi" Within a very few minutes Charlie Eastwood, Upton Warren and Simla >nds were heading towards the s iaft. The foreman and his men were waiting; half a dozen lamps, with powerful reflectors, were being lighted, and there was curious silence among them all. They knew why the shaft had been sunk, but they felt they were in the presence of the dead. Not one had dared to venture a hundred feet into the mine, and when the shaft was finished they had gladly come to the surface again. "The buckcit'll just hold the three of you, air," Baid the foreman. "You remain here and wait for us," Charlie answered. "Wait if we don't come back till morning. You can get anything you want at the house. Double pay to all of you." The three men stepped gingerly into the big iron bucket, and over the mouth of the shaft it swunj. "Lower her," ordered the foreman. The chains creaked in the pulleyblocks; the pulleys squeaked; the winch-wheels grumbled and laboursd in their bearings, and the bucket and its freight vanished, with a whirling, giddying motion. "Steady above," roared Charlie. The bucket touched the earth below, and the men scrambled out. "Each man take a lamp," said Charlie. "Hang the others against the wall—here. Now, boys there's something more than theorizing in front of U". This is the end of the outcrop, and ought never to have bean followed. The coal was worked by a butty-gang, and they are never very particular about evading regulations. This angle is very acute, and down it we go into the workings. Town this went Jack Berrington. Come on." Charlie Eastwood stepped forward with no uncertain feet. To the others it seemed like plunging into a bottomjess abyss. ChaHie sniffed the air. "It isn't bad," he said. "It's suffocating," thought Warren. "The intake and the return are in pretty good shape. .Steady, boys; we're nearing the level—level, compared with this, I mean. Stop, and look around. From this point the workings are like a rabbit-warren, and here our labour begins. If we follow the rail-track we shall walk a couple of miles to the main shaft. That's the way Jack Berrington would go until stopped by the water. You must remember one important fact, boys, Jac'c Berrington was no tender-fout, Hj was bred and born among iron-works and collieries, and he has tramped this very mine with me at least a score of times. We mustn't think of him as a panicstricken howler, or we shall bd out of our reckoning." "Hark!" Warren whispered. Hia, face had blanched "The pump's rumbling in the earth'* vitals." "No! no!" said Warren. There were eery murmurs, snipsnap, as bits of earth no bigger than a man's thumb fell to the ground; the sounds were flung upward from cutting to cutting, from pillar to pillar; there was the dripping of water and the squeaking of rats. "How do the vermin manage to subsist here?" Warren shivered. "Their burrows run up to the surface —through fifty-foot ' walls into other mines. Bah! they're disgusting beasts." Charlie turned to his tecretary. "Have you a coin? Here

are two ways equally promising. Toss for choice. I follow head!" His deep voice rolled like thunder in the cuttings. "Head it is I" Pie wiped his reeking brow. "Pestilential heat." "I am suffocating," said Warren. "This way, boys! Throw your lights well in front. We've each got to befa sort of human°lynx now." •< A far-away boom rolled upward, and the air eddied about them, gaseous, choking. Bits of the roof showered down, and an army of rats raced between their legs, fierce-eyed and panic-stricken. "Hang the pumps!" Charlie growled, "the mischief's in them." He kicked savagely [at a big rat that lingered in his way, and Warren clutched his shoulder with fingers like a steel trap. "Good God, Mr Eastwood!" he gasped. "Look here here HERE!" The figure of a man was propped against the black wall —as" black as the wall itself hatless, coatle&s, shirtless. The fingers were bent like the talons of an eagle, and halfburied in the ebony earth. "It's Jack!" screamed Charlie. "Jack —Jack! Oh, Lord —Lord!"

CHAPTER XXXIV

RESURRECTION

Charlie Eastwood reeled for a moment. The weakness of his recent illness was still upon him. . g"lt's Jack—it's Jack'!' he gurgled. Upton Warren had passed his strong right arm round the grimy form, and the talonlike fingers let go of the wall. Jack Berrington was living! Not only was the body alive, bat the wind too. "I heard you," he said feebly, "and I was coming to you. I've waited four or five days." "Fourteen!" Sirnmonds groanec"J the tears bursting from his eyes. Charlie Eastwood was kissing his old chum, like a man bereft of his reason, and talking the wildest sort of gibberish. "I can't see," said Jack, in a weak, halting voice. "I'm blind." "Turn the lamps away," Warren j said, "the light's too strong for him. A nip of brandy, sir? Not much; you can't stand it yet. It's amazing to find him living," he added, under his breath. "He'll tell us all about it soon," Charlie cried hysterically. "We're going up into God's world now, old fellow, and you've got to be carried. Here, Warren, wrap my coat round him." Jack Berrington was a bit dazed now and then, but he shock it off, for his vitality was tremendous. "Where's my boy, Allan?" he murmured. (To be continued.)