Black Diamonds Part 58

"I do."

"Can I see for myself what has been done?"

"Where you are standing it would be impossible for you to judge."

"Well, let me go where I can see something."

"Do you really wish to go below? It is not a pleasant place."

"Where you go, so can I; for my part, I don't care if it was h.e.l.l itself."

"It is not unlike what h.e.l.l must be."

"Well, I am resolved to pay it a visit. I want to make the acquaintance of the devil; perhaps I could make an arrangement with him to supply us with coal."

"You may come on one condition: if you accompany me you must understand that I cannot let you stand gaping about. There is not room in the place for more than two people, and they must both work."

"I am not afraid of work. I am the devil for work."

"Very good, then, come along," said Ivan; "and if the other gentlemen would like to accompany us to where the machines are working they can follow us."

The others seized the opportunity.

Ivan made them put on miners' dress. They were then hoisted into the crane, and descended into the shaft. Each one had a safety-lamp fastened to his belt and wore a thick felt hat.

Ivan led them through the different windings of the pit until they came to the iron door of the cavern in which, not long since, the pond used periodically to come and go. The middle of this s.p.a.ce was now filled by a large mill-like machine, which was kept in motion by an endless strap worked from above. In this mill some substance was being ground, and, when reduced to fine powder, was carried, by means of certain mechanical contrivances, through a pipe and over a bridge, where it disappeared from view.

Ivan led his guests through still more tortuous ways. Once they descended the shaft of a well; once they mounted high ladders, finding themselves when they had done so in a small chamber, not measuring six feet in circ.u.mference, in which two miners were waiting--an old and a young man.

"Now," said Ivan to Spitzhase, "here is our dressing-room; we must put on our costume."

"What! have we another change of clothes?"

"Yes, we have to don a coat of mail in the tournament in which we are going to take part; we require armor."

At a sign from him the miners came forward and began to prepare the two gentlemen. The equipment was something similar to that of a fireman--a coat and stockings, the outer stuff being made of asbestos, while the s.p.a.ce between that and the lining was filled with pulverized charcoal; the hands and arms were also covered with long gloves made of asbestos, the fingers being air-proof.

"We could pa.s.s for knights," said Spitzhase, jestingly.

"Wait until you see our helmets," returned Ivan.

The miners brought two helmets made of gla.s.s, each of which had a hollow s.p.a.ce with twelve joints and three apertures. Ivan explained the use of these.

"The place into which we are about to descend is full of coal-gas. We must have an apparatus which will enable us to pa.s.s through fire and to dive under water."

Spitzhase began to repent that he had been so venturesome, but he was ashamed to turn back now, and he had a certain amount of pluck.

"We need," continued Ivan, "an apparatus which is a combination of the diver's and the fireman's dress. To the gla.s.s helmet, which will be attached to the coat-collar by means of air-proof caoutchouc, there will be fastened two tubes, through one of which the necessary amount of air will be conveyed to us, and through the other the bad air will be expelled. The ends of both the tubes will remain here, while we drag them after us in the same manner as does the diver. Although all bad air escapes from our helmets, still we shall find the air rather warmer than it is up here, and it will smell like vulcanized india-rubber; still we cannot suffocate. To this third aperture an elastic tube will be fixed, which unites both helmets; through this tube each will hear what the other says, for the gla.s.s is so thick that no sound penetrates it, and when you have it on your head you will with difficulty hear what is said by me."

Spitzhase had begun to feel very uncomfortable, for now the miner proceeded to adjust the gla.s.s helmet to his head. When the tubes were being fixed into the three apertures he perceived that he had become suddenly stone deaf. He saw the lips of the two commissioners moving, but not one word could he hear. He no longer belonged to the world.

Only one sound reached him, and that was the voice of the man to whose head he was fastened.

"Take one end of the hose upon your arm," shouted the voice into his helmet; yet the sound seemed to come from a long way off, or as if out of a tunnel.

Mechanically he took the coil on his shoulder.

"Let us go," shouted Ivan, taking the other end of the coil on his shoulder, and, opening a thick oak door, which had hitherto escaped Spitzhase's observation, they pa.s.sed through.

The two commissioners had heard nothing that had pa.s.sed between the two "knights"; but when they saw the oak door open they hurriedly asked the miners whether the foul air did not come in. The older workman rea.s.sured them; the carbon was much heavier than oxygen, and even thicker than hydrogen. The foul air remained below, where the two divers had gone. They might have every confidence so long as the safety-lamps burned. Meantime, the others had penetrated into a roomy cavern, the walls of which proved it had not been made by the hands of men, but was a natural formation. Each part.i.tion of the wall fitted into another, like the blocks of a puzzle, and each block was as smooth as a steel mirror. They were ma.s.ses of coal set obliquely one upon another. The cavern was bridged over with thick, strong wooden planks. The gearing strap, which had made its way from the cavern in serpent-like fas.h.i.+on, had set a wheel in motion, and the noise of the clapper resounded under the bridge, and made a sound as if it were working in deep water. From this bridge a narrow path led obliquely into the stone layers. Once beyond the entrance into this dark path the lamps ceased to burn; the coal-gas had begun its sway. Upon the bridge an electric machine was placed, whose brilliant light was shaded by a wire screen.

The old miner set the machine working, and the light flashed into every nook and cranny of the subterranean cavern. It lighted up the narrow tunnel which, for the last month, Ivan had been boring from his own mine to that of his neighbor. He had told no one what he had been doing, but now the work was almost finished; it only required to be broken through. This work, which would take another week to complete, needed to be done in a diver's equipment. The length of the narrow tunnel was perfectly illumined by the electric machine, as if in the broad light of the sun. Where it turned out of its course high looking-gla.s.ses of polished steel were placed in positions which reflected the light itself until it faded away to a faint glimmer. The two divers could now hardly discern an object.

"We shall soon be in darkness," said Spitzhase to Ivan.

"We shall have light enough," returned Ivan; and he led the way farther into the tunnel.

Spitzhase was forced to follow, for his head was fastened to Ivan's head. Wonderful pair of Siamese twins! If the pipe that bound them together were to break, both were dead men.

"Halt!" cried Ivan. "Here is the pump. Give me the pipe."

In the half-darkness a little machine three feet high was discernible; it was provided with a spring wheel. This suction-pipe had been brought here only the day before. Ivan took the caoutchouc coil from his companion's shoulder, and screwed the pipe to the aperture of the machine; then he set the wheel in motion, and in a few seconds it, with the heavy b.a.l.l.s attached, was revolving with velocity. Then he took the end of the pipe and gave the coil back to Spitzhase with this difference: instead of putting it over his arm he hung the hose over his neck. Spitzhase felt as if the pipe were about a hundredweight heavier, and that it had grown suddenly stiff.

"Forward! quick march!" shouted Ivan into his helmet.

"It begins to be hot as h.e.l.l itself," grumbled Spitzhase, who was suffering horribly.

"Because we are in a part of the mine where the fire has been put out."

Both the men wore on their feet gla.s.s slippers, otherwise they would have felt that the ashes through which they were wading were glowing with heat.

The india-rubber hose hung round Spitzhase's neck. It grew darker and darker, until at last it was as dark as Erebus.

"I can see nothing," shouted Spitzhase.

"You are safe if you follow me," returned Ivan.

It began to grow somewhat lighter. The light, however, was rose color; there was twilight, then, in the bowels of the earth.

Spitzhase complained he could hardly draw his breath.

"That will get better presently," said Ivan, encouraging him.

They had now turned the corner of the road, and the terrible tragedy of h.e.l.l itself lay before them. Yes, h.e.l.l itself was there. A burning labyrinth, in whose glowing pa.s.sages the prismatic colors changed every moment. The blue-green flames leaped from the ground and blended with the flames of brilliant scarlet which played upon the burning wall, and again faded in the far distance into a deep purple color. It was like a fairy transparency at a pantomime. Through the fissures and crevices sheets of white sun-rays poured like molten silver. Amid the glowing coals there seemed to rise shapes as of demons dancing, creatures with green hair and red beards, and from the red sulphate of the vaulting there fell slowly a golden shower, a melting rain of sparks. From the clefts in the side walls the gas, let loose from all restraint, hissed like so many demoniacal serpents, and kindled a subterranean flame of its own. Out of the depths of the pit a waterspout of fire shot suddenly, sending in every direction a shower of sparks. Over the whole floated a milk-colored cloud, which filled the vault with a nebulous vapor, wandering as a will-o'-the-wisp here and there, and threatening every moment to envelop the rash visitors to h.e.l.l in its chill embrace. Spitzhase, alarmed out of all control, pressed closer to the wall; fright was overcoming him.

"Let go the hose!" shouted Ivan. The hose fell like a serpent unchained, wriggling backward and forward. "Now follow me. Hold the pipe on your arm;" and he drew Spitzhase after him.

He was constrained to follow, although his heart was in his mouth; their heads were fastened to each other. If he had had sufficient strength to free himself from this terrible companions.h.i.+p, it would have in no way helped him, for the carbon would have killed him instantaneously.