Chapter 16

CHAPTER XVI A FINAL THREAT

ON that day, in the colliery of New Aberfoyle, work was going on in
the usual regular way. In the distance could be heard the crash of great
charges of dynamite, by which the carboniferous rocks were blasted.
Here masses of coal were loosened by pick-ax and crowbar;
there the perforating machines, with their harsh grating,
bored through the masses of sandstone and schist.

Hollow, cavernous noises resounded on all sides.
Draughts of air rushed along the ventilating galleries,
and the wooden swing-doors slammed beneath their violent gusts.
In the lower tunnels, trains of trucks kept passing along at
the rate of fifteen miles an hour, while at their approach electric
bells warned the workmen to cower down in the refuge places.
Lifts went incessantly up and down, worked by powerful engines
on the surface of the soil. Coal Town was throughout brilliantly
lighted by the electric lamps at full power.

Mining operations were being carried on with the greatest activity;
coal was being piled incessantly into the trucks, which went in hundreds
to empty themselves into the corves at the bottom of the shaft.
While parties of miners who

had labored during the night were taking needful rest, the others
worked without wasting an hour.

Old Simon Ford and Madge, having finished their dinner, were resting
at the door of their cottage. Simon smoked a good pipe of tobacco,
and from time to time the old couple spoke of Nell, of their boy,
of Mr. Starr, and wondered how they liked their trip to the surface
of the earth. Where would they be now? What would they be doing?
How could they stay so long away from the mine without feeling homesick?

Just then a terrific roaring noise was heard. It was like the sound of a
mighty cataract rushing down into the mine. The old people rose hastily.
They perceived at once that the waters of Loch Malcolm were rising.
A great wave, unfurling like a billow, swept up the bank and broke
against the walls of the cottage. Simon caught his wife in his arms,
and carried her to the upper part of their dwelling.

At the same moment, cries arose from all parts of Coal Town,
which was threatened by a sudden inundation. The inhabitants fled
for safety to the top of the schist rocks bordering the lake;
terror spread in all directions; whole families in frantic haste
rushed towards the tunnel in order to reach the upper regions
of the pit.

It was feared that the sea had burst into the colliery, for its galleries
and passages penetrated as far as the Caledonian Canal. In that case
the entire excavation, vast as it was, would be completely flooded.
Not a single inhabitant of New Aberfoyle would escape death.

But when the