Why had Grayson been so still? While we fumed about and looked up and worked he sat still; why this indifference? He was a philosopher and a mathematician, and also an old man. He knew that he could make his air last longer by keeping still and breathing little, and so he was able to help us when no other help could get near. When Brand and I fell unconscious he was ready to receive the headpieces that had come a few minutes too late, and with a, skill and strength wonderful in a man of his years he had half raised Brand and screwed off his helmet and put another on. Brand immediately recovered, and then the two did a like service for me; but I had been out of life for five minutes and did not rally so easily. Grayson had saved us all by his foresight and promptness.
We could not yet speak, but we knew the danger was past, for the rope was going up from the roof and we should be drawn up long before our air was exhausted. In another hour we were being welcomed to the surface by some forty-two masked and insulated men. Of necessity there was no cheering, but the faces behind the glasses were cheerful and smiling, and the clasp of friendly hands was better than the embrace of death.
The men below were now ringing for a cage. The shift had not come to relieve them at the usual time and so they had come to see what was the matter. They had to be hurriedly got up I thought, but I learned afterwards that they could get fresh charges of air in their knapsacks at certain places in the mine, and had done so on this occasion; being in the shaft we had no such chance.
Brand left the men to get up and down as best they could, and took Grayson and me to see the Granby cables. There were ten of them, each about eighteen inches in diameter, and apparently growing out of the solid rock. Each cable had in it a thousand insulated copper wires of various diameters, and a central core an inch through, meant to carry electricity to fill up the accumulators of ocean-going boats.
Brand asked us if we were willing to go and see the loadstone quarries. They were within half a mile, and were not down a shaft.
Grayson declined, but would wait in the insulated car till we came back. I feeling sure that Grayson was weary enough, and having had enough adventure for one day, declined also. We entered the car, removed our helmets, and in little more than an hour, and without further adventure, reached the surface.
How strange the open air felt, and how old the day was: it was hard to believe that it wanted yet two hours of sunset, and that we had only been below eight hours. It seemed to me eight years since I had helped the birds to welcome the sun still shining.
To the hostel we all three directed our steps, and over a late dinner recounted our feelings and sensations as we underwent them in enforced silence. Brand had the most to say, for he had to explain what we had seen.
