who went there to identify a body which was
laid on one of the benches. It was that of a
boy, whose face was not disfigured as some of
the others were.

From the village I went back to the colliery,
and ascended once more to that dreadful
platform. The wheels were still turning, and the
ropes ascending with their awful load. One
could hardly find standing room for the piles of
coffins which were placed about in readiness,
and for those which were being borne past to
the particular spot on the platform where the
bodies were laid out. At that place an old
woman was standing with a quantity of linen,
which she tore into pieces for winding-sheets.
These were stretched out and kept from blowing
away by weights on their corners till they were
wanted, and round about stood those who
unfastened the chains with which the corpses were
girt about, besides those who were wanted to
identify the dead, the doctors, and others. The
colliery boys were, there to recognise the faces
of the other boys who were brougt up from
below. One after another, at intervals of about a
quarter of an hour, the loads of dead were raised,
the bodies were reached from the abyss over
which they hung by the men who stood there
for the purpose, and laid, clothed as they were,
upon the outstretched sheet. Poor men, and
poor boys, their faces and limbs were grimed
with black, and many disfigured in an awful
degree. Poor patient hard-working men! It
was a sight almost as touching as it was ghastly
to see them brought up thus, and lain in their
coffins the sheet folded over them, clothed as
they were—clothed only in a few scant garments,
however, for the air below, though damp, is, I
believe, not cold, and they want but little
clothing when they are at work. The bodies
did not seem to be stiff, and the limbs were
easily composed. Some were much more frightful
to look upon and more decomposed than others,
and some of the boys had colour in their lips
certainly, and if I remember rightly—it is difficult
to be accurate in such a case—had some
tint of redness in their faces. "A laddie's
coffin" would sometimes be called for by those
who laid out the bodies, and a large one asked
for at the same time; the two would be pushed
across the bridge together, and it may be that
the large coffin held the father, and that "the
laddie" was his son.

This dreadful operation continued all through
that long afternoon without intermission.
Relays of men, clad in mining costume, were
ready to go down when others came up. They
sat across a short beam of wood fastened to
the chain, and the word was given to the
engine-house, "Lower the gin," and then the
wheels were at work again, and soon the men
were lost in the darkness of the shaft, to appear
again in time with that dangling lifeless mass
grappled on to the chain beneath them.

Death on this wholesale scale it rarely falls to
any man's lot to witness, and especially death
attended with such circumstances of blackness
and desolation. Not on the battle-field, where
there is colour and brightness of regimentals
and glittering of arms, could such a scene of
horror as this be found. That great hole, and
the gallows-like machinery above it, and the
disfigured, sordidly attired, blackened corpses
rising from the dark chasm, can anything more
terrible be conceived? The long preparation
for what was coming, of that ever-rising rope
watched so eagerly, the piles of coffins in all
directions, the wild aspect of those pale miners
standing about the fires, the horrid and
suggestive smell of chloride of lime—which even
clung to my clothing next day—can any more
hideous combination of things be conceived?

Once more I went below and wandered a little
way into some purer air, but still keeping near
the place. The sun was setting when I turned
again towards that Tower of Death. It was
behind the building within which these things
that I have spoken of were concealed, and it
blazed through it and around it, its beams
passing over the village to which the dead were
taken. All was enveloped for a time in a sort
of fiery nimbus, and then the sun went down.

The sun went down, and the chilling icy cold
increased as the darkness began to fall over the
scene. Again I stood upon the platform beside
the shaft. Still that sinister machine was at
work. Again the smoothly-working ropes were
gliding up out of the black place, and then the
pale miners, who looked like corpses themselves,
came up into the shadowy and fading
light; and the indistinct bundles of clothing, with
the hanging heads and swinging legs and arms,
came up too. Then, with a hollow sound, the
coffins rolled across the bridge. And now the
preparations for the night were made, and fires
kindled in the beacon-irons, to give light. One
such beacon was slung with ropes aloft over the
spot on which the recovered bodies were laid,
and another stood near upon a sort of tripod.
The light from them began to gleam upon the
woodwork of the scaffold, upon the broken
brattice, upon the smoothly-rising ropes, upon
the strange dresses of the miners and their pale
faces, and lastly on those ever-arriving masses
of corruption which swung up from the depths
below. Looking aside to where the stone steps
gave access to the platform, one could see against
the sky the shapes of fresh coffins arriving in
continuous succession.

Volleys of sparks flew from the beacons,
driving before the cutting wind. The linen for
the winding-sheets waved and fluttered, but was
soon pressed down with such a deadly weight
as kept it still enough. The twilight deepened,
and still the wheels were at work. Still the
two ropes descended, and the men who clung to
each would swing against the others' rope and
disappear below. Then came the interval while
they were busied with their dreadful task; and
then again the long ascent, the ropes steadier,
perhaps, with the added weight. The names of
the dead called aloud—unless, as I remember
once, the poor disfigured corpse was recognised
by no one, when the word "Unknown" was
written on the coffin.