“Not one chance in a thousand,” Brengyn added, heavily.  “I know where they are, but—­”

“You think they are—­dead?” Jasmine asked in a hollow voice.

“I think, alive or dead, it’s all against them as goes down to bring them out.  It’s more lives to be wasted.”

Stafford heard, and he stepped forward.  “If there’s a chance in a thousand, it’s good enough for a try,” he said.  “If you were there, Mr. Byng would take the chance in the thousand for you.”

Brengyn looked Stafford up and down slowly.  “What is it you’ve got to say?” he asked, gloomily.

“I am going down, if there’s anybody will lead,” Stafford replied.  “I was brought up in a mining country.  I know as much as most of you about mines, and I’ll make one to follow you, if you’ll lead—­you’ve been down, I know.”

Brengyn’s face changed.  “Mr. Byng isn’t our class, he’s with capital,” he said, “but he’s a man.  He went down to help save men of my class, and to any of us he’s worth the risk.  But how many of his own class is taking it on?”

“I, for one,” said Lord Tynemouth, stepping forward.

“I—­I,” answered three other men of the house-party.

Al’mah, who was standing just below Jasmine, had her eyes fixed on Adrian Fellowes, and when Brengyn called for volunteers, her heart almost stood still in suspense.  Would Adrian volunteer?

Brengyn’s look rested on Adrian for an instant, but Adrian’s eyes dropped.  Brengyn had said one chance in a thousand, and Adrian said to himself that he had never been lucky—­never in all his life.  At games of chance he had always lost.  Adrian was for the sure thing always.

Al’mah’s face flushed with anger and shame at the thing she saw, and a weakness came over her, as though the springs of life had been suddenly emptied.

Brengyn once again fastened the group from Glencader with his eyes.  “There’s a gentleman in danger,” he said, grimly, again.  “How many gentlemen volunteer to go down—­ay, there’s five!” he added, as Stafford and Tynemouth and the others once again responded.

Jasmine saw, but at first did not fully realize what was happening.  But presently she understood that there was one near, owing everything to her husband, who had not volunteered to help to save him—­on the thousandth chance.  She was stunned and stricken.

“Oh, for God’s sake, go!” she said, brokenly, but not looking at Adrian Fellowes, and with a heart torn by misery and shame.

Brengyn turned to the men behind him, the dark, determined toilers who sustained the immortal spirit of courage and humanity on thirty shillings a week and nine hours’ work a day.  “Who’s for it, mates?” he asked, roughly.  “Who’s going wi’ me?”

Every man answered hoarsely, “Ay,” and every hand went up.  Brengyn’s back was on Fellowes, Al’mah, and Jasmine now.  There was that which filled the cup of trembling for Al’mah in the way he nodded to the men.