GERMINAL
"She's there! She's replied to me! Come along, quickly!"
He had slid down the ladders, in spite of the watchman, and was declaring that he had heard hammering over there, in the first passage of the Guillaume seam.
"But we have already been twice in that direction," Négrel observed, sceptically. "Anyhow, we'll go and see."
Maheude had risen, and had to be prevented from going down. She waited, standing at the edge of the shaft, gazing down into the darkness of the hole.
Négrel, down below, himself struck three blows, at long intervals. He then applied his ear to the coal, cautioning the workers to be very silent. Not a sound reached him, and he shook his head; evidently the poor lad was dreaming. In a fury, Zacharie struck in his turn, and listened anew with bright eyes and limbs trembling with joy. Then the other workmen tried the experiment, one after the other, and all grew animated, hearing the distant reply, very far away. The engineer was astonished; he again applied his ear, and was at last able to catch a sound of aerial softness, a rhythmical roll scarcely to be distinguished, the well-known cadence beaten by the miners when they are fighting against the coal in the midst of danger. The coal transmits the sound with crystalline limpidity for a very great distance. A captain who was there estimated that the thickness of the block which separated them from their mates could not be less than fifty mètres. But it seemed as if they could already stretch out a hand to them, and general gladness broke out. Négrel had to begin at once the work of approach.
When Zacharie, up above, saw Maheude again, they embraced each other.
"It won't do to get excited," Pierronne, who had come for a visit of inquisitiveness, was cruel enough to say. "If Catherine isn't there, it would be such a grief afterwards!"
That was true; Catherine might be somewhere else.
"Just leave me alone, will you? Damn it!" cried Zacharie, in a rage. "She's there; I know it!"
Maheude sat down again in silence, with motionless face, continuing to wait.
As soon as the story was spread at Montsou, a new crowd arrived. Nothing was to be seen; but they remained there all the same, and had to be kept at a distance. Down below, the
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