She did not sense him.  She swayed, half on her feet, half in his arms, as consciousness and reason returned to her.  Dazedly her hands went to his face in their old, sweet way.  Aldous saw her struggling to understand—­to comprehend; and he kissed her soft upturned lips, fighting back the excitement that made him want to raise his voice again in wild and joyous shouting.

“It is Blackton!” he said over and over again.  “It is Blackton and his men!  Listen!—­you can hear their picks and the pounding of their rock-hammers!”

CHAPTER XX

At last Joanne realized that the explosion was not to come, that Blackton and his men were working to save them.  And now, as she listened with him, her breath began to come in sobbing excitement between her lips—­for there was no mistaking that sound, that steady beat-beat-beat that came from beyond the cavern wall and seemed to set strange tremors stirring in the air about their ears.  For a few moments they stood stunned and silent, as if not yet quite fully comprehending that they had come from out of the pit of death, and that men were fighting for their rescue.  They asked themselves no questions—­why the “coyote” had not been fired? how those outside knew they were in the cavern.  And, as they listened, there came to them a voice.  It was faint, so faint that it seemed to whisper to them through miles and miles of space—­yet they knew that it was a voice!

“Some one is shouting,” spoke Aldous tensely.  “Joanne, my darling, stand around the face of the wall so flying rock will not strike you and I will answer with my pistol!”

When he had placed her in safety from split lead and rock chips, he drew his automatic and fired it close up against the choked tunnel.  He fired five times, steadily, counting three between each shot, and then he placed his ear to the mass of stone and earth and listened.  Joanne slipped to him like a shadow.  Her hand sought his, and they held their breaths.  They no longer heard sounds—­nothing but the crumbling and falling of dust and pebbles where the bullets had struck, and their own heart-beats.  The picks and rock-hammers had ceased.

Tighter and tighter grew the clasp of Joanne’s fingers, and a terrible thought flashed into John’s brain.  Perhaps a, rock from the slide had cut a wire, and they had found the wire—­had repaired it!  Was that thought in Joanne’s mind, too?  Her finger-nails pricked his flesh.  He looked at her.  Her eyes were closed, and her lips were tense and gray.  And then her eyes shot open—­wide and staring.  They heard, faintly though it came to them—­once, twice, three times, four, five—­the firing of a gun!

John Aldous straightened, and a great breath fell from his lips.

“Five times!” he said.  “It is an answer.  There is no longer doubt.”

He was holding out his arms to her, and she came into them with a choking cry; and now she sobbed like a little child with her head against his breast, and for many minutes he held her close, kissing her wet face, and her damp hair, and her quivering lips, while the beat of the picks and the crash of the rock-hammers came steadily nearer.