“You’ll see, it will brust itsen,” said Burnley, exultantly, “and the sooner the better for me; for I’ll never get alive out on t’ mine; yow blowed me to the men, and they’ll break every bone in my skin.”

Hope did not answer this directly.

“There, don’t go to meet trouble, my man,” said he.  “Give me the can, Grace.  Now, Burnley, hold this can, and catch every drop till it is full.”

“Why, it will take hauf a day to fill it,” objected Burnley, “and it will be hauf mud when all is done.”

“I’ll filter it,” said Hope.  “You do as you are bid.”

He darted to a part of the mine where he had seen a piece of charred timber; he dragged it in with him, and asked Grace for a pocket-handkerchief; she gave him a clean cambric one.  He took his pocket-knife and soon scraped off a little heap of charcoal; and then he sewed the handkerchief into a bag—­for the handy man always carried a needle and thread.

Slowly, slowly the muddy water trickled into the little can, and then the bag being placed over the larger can, slowly, slowly the muddy water trickled through Hope’s filter, and dropped clear and drinkable into the larger can.  In that dead life of theirs, with no incidents but torments and terrors, the hours passed swiftly in this experiment.  Hope sat upon a great lump of coal, his daughter kneeled in front of him, gazing at him with love, confidence, reverence; and Burnley kneeled in front of him too, but at a greater distance, with wolfish eyes full of thirst and nothing else.

At last the little can was two-thirds full of clear water.  Hope took the large iron spoon which he had found along with the tea, and gave a full spoonful to his daughter.  “My child,” said he, “let it trickle very slowly over your tongue and down your throat; it is the throat and the adjacent organs which suffer most from thirst.”  He then took a spoonful himself, not to drink after an assassin.  He then gave a spoonful to Burnley with the same instructions, and rose from his seat and gave the can to Grace, and said, “The rest of this pittance must not be touched for six hours at least.”

Burnley, instead of complying with the wise advice given him, tossed the liquid down his throat with a gesture, and then dashing down the spoon, said, “I’ll have the rest on’t if I die for it,” and made a furious rush at Grace Hope.

She screamed faintly, and Hope met him full in that incautious rush, and felled him like a log with a single blow.  Burnley lay there with his heels tapping the ground for a little while, then he got on his hands and knees, and crawled away to the farthest corner of his own place, and sat brooding.

That night when Grace retired to rest Hope lay down at her feet, with his hammer in his hand, and when one slept the other watched, for they feared an attack.  Toward the morning of the next day Grace’s quick senses heard a mysterious noise in Burnley’s quarter; she woke her father.  Directly he went to the place, and he found Burnley at work on his knees tearing away with his hands and nails at the ruins of the shaft.  Apparently fury supplied the place of strength, for he had raised quite a large heap behind him, and he had laid bare the feet up to the knees of a dead miner.  Hope reported this in a hushed voice to Grace, and said, solemnly, “Poor wretch, he’s going mad, I fear.”