INSIDE THE TUNNEL.





And, indeed, if brain-waves had been in question at all, they
ought, without a doubt, to have informed Guy Waring that at the
very moment when he was going out to send off his telegram, his
brother Cyril was sitting disconsolate, with dark blue lips and
swollen eyelids, on the footboard of the railway carriage in the
Lavington tunnel. Cyril was worn out with digging by this time,
for he had done his best once more to clear away the sand towards
the front of the train in the vague hope that he might succeed in
letting in a little more air to their narrow prison through the
chinks and interstices of the fallen sandstone. Besides, a man in
an emergency must do something, if only to justify his claim to
manliness--especially when a lady is looking on at his efforts.

So Cyril Waring had toiled and moiled in that deadly atmosphere for
some hours in vain, and now sat, wearied out and faint from foul
vapours, by Elma's side on the damp, cold footboard. By this time
the air had almost failed them. They gasped for breath, their heads
swam vaguely. A terrible weight seemed to oppress their bosoms.
Even the lamps in the carriages flickered low and burned blue.
The atmosphere of the tunnel, loaded from the very beginning with
sulphurous smoke, was now all but exhausted. Death stared them in
the face without hope of respite--a ghastly, slow death by gradual
stifling.