“A’thegither again, laddies!” encouraged Andrew.  “This time!” and with a tremendous effort the stone gave way, and Jamie was pulled clear, his leg a crushed mass of pulpy blood and shattered bones.  They dragged him back clear of any further falls, and improvised a stretcher on which to carry home his now unconscious body.

“That was a hell o’ a narrow shave,” quietly observed Tam Donaldson, as they panted together, and tried to collect themselves.  “His leg’s wasted, I doot, an’ will need to come off.”  When they had their stretcher ready, the wounded man was tenderly placed upon it, carefully covered up with the jackets of the others; whilst half-a-dozen of them carried him to the pit bottom, and finally bore him home, where the doctor was ready waiting to attend to him.

Andrew and a few others worked away, and at last managed to get the running sore in the roof choked up with long bars of timber, and even though it continued to rumble away above them, the heavy blocks of wood held, and so allowed them to work away in comparative safety.

Peter Pegg and Matthew Maitland returned at six o’clock next morning, bringing with them another band of workers to relieve those who had worked all night, but still Andrew Marshall would not leave the scene of the disaster.  He worked and rested by turns, advising and guiding the younger men, who never spared themselves.  They performed mighty epics of work down there in the darkness amid the rumbling, falling roof.  It was a great task they were set, but they never shirked the consequences.  They never turned back.  Risks were taken and accepted without a thought; tasks were eagerly jumped to, and the whole job accepted as if it were just what ordinarily they were asked to do.

Crash went the hammers; thump went the great blocks of material into the tubs, and the men quietly got away the tubs as they were filled.  Night and day the great work went on, never ceasing, persistent, relentless.  If one man dropped out a minute to breathe and rest when exhausted, another sprang into his place, and toiled and strove like an engine.

There was something great and inspiring even to look on at those mighty efforts—­something exhilarating and elevating in the play of muscles like great long shooting serpents under the glistening skins of the men.  Arms shot out, tugged and tore, jerked and wrenched, then doubled up and the muscles became knots, bulging out as if they would break through the skin, as the great blocks were lifted; and then the blocks were cast into the tub, the knots untied themselves, and slipped elastically back into their places, and the serpents were momentarily at rest until the body bent again to another block.  Out and in they flew, supple and silent, quick as lightning playing in the heavens; they zig-zagged and shot this way and that, tying and untying themselves, darting out and doubling back, advancing and retiring in rhythmic action, graceful and easy, powerful and inevitable.  Bending and rising, the swaying bodies gleamed and glistened with greasy dust and sweat, catching the gleams from the lamps and reflecting them in every streaming pore.  Straining and tearing, the muscles, at every slightest wish, seemed to exude energy and health, glowing strength and power.