Just as a far more awful explosion than all took place, one side of that amphitheatre fell in and the very earth heaved.

The corner part of the shaft fell in upon the cage and many poor miners who were hoping to escape by it; but those escaped for the present who obeyed Hope's order and fled to another part of the mine, and when the stifling vapors drifted away there stood Hope pale as death, but strong as iron, with the assassin at his feet, and poor Grace crouching and quivering in her recess.

Their fate now awaited these three, a speedy death by choke-damp, or a slow death by starvation, or a rescue from the outside under circumstances of unparalleled difficulty, since there was but one shaft completed, and that was now closed by a mountain of debris..