He
paused to change a drill when a faint hullo was heard from the other
side.
"Hullo," he yelled, then held his breath in tense silence to hear the
response which came immediately. "Are you all safe?" he roared, his
voice carrying easily through the open coal.
"Ay," came the faint answer; "but the moss is rising in the heading and
you'll have to hurry up."
Robert knew this, and one of his helpers had gone down an old heading to
explore and had returned to say that it was rising steadily and was now
within two hundred feet from the old shaft down which he had descended.
"Where away did the roof break?" roared Robert as he changed his second
drill.
"Half way doon the cousie brae," came the answer, "an' we're all shut in
like rats. Hurry up and get us oot," and again the rickety, rackety
noise of the boring machine began and drowned all other noises.
He soon drilled his holes and he could hear them on the other side
singing now some ribald song to keep up their courage, while others who
were religiously inclined chanted hymns and psalms, but all were
wondering whether Robert and his men would be able to break through the
barrier in time to save them before the persistently rising moss claimed
them.
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