Page:Germinal - Zola - 1925.djvu/444

GERMINAL Then they began to feel around. The engineer, having gone down with ten workmen, made them strike the iron of their tools against certain parts of the seam which he pointed out to them; and in deep silence they each placed an ear to the coal, listening for any distant blows to reply. But they went in vain through every practicable gallery; no echo returned to them. Their embarrassment increased. At what spot should they cut into the bed? Towards whom should they go, since no one appeared to be there? They persisted in seeking, however, notwithstanding the exhaustion produced by their growing anxiety.

On the first day, Maheude came in the morning to Réquillart. She sat down on a beam in front of the shaft, and did not stir from it till the evening. When a man came up, she rose and questioned him with her eyes: Nothing? No, nothing! And she sat down again, and waited still, without a word, with hard, fixed face. Jeanlin also, seeing that his den was invaded, prowled around with the frightened air of a beast of prey whose burrow will betray his booty. He thought of the little soldier lying beneath the rocks, fearing lest they should trouble his sound sleep; but that side of the mine was beneath the water, and, besides, their investigations were directed more to the left, in the west gallery. At first, Philomène had also come, accompanying Zacharie, who was one of the gang; then she became wearied at catching cold, without need or result, and went back to the settlement, dragging through her days, a limp indifferent woman, occupied from morning to night in coughing. Zacharie, on the contrary, lived for nothing else; he would have devoured the soil to get back his sister. At night he shouted out that he saw her, he heard her, very lean from hunger, her chest sore with calling for help. Since that he had tried to dig without orders, saying that it was there, that he was sure of it. The engineer would not let him come down any more, and he would not go away from the pit, from which he was driven off; he could not even sit down and wait near his mother, he was so deeply stirred by the need to act, which drove him constantly on.

It was the third day. Négrel, in despair, had resolved to abandon the attempt in the evening. At mid-day, after lunch, when he came back with his men to make one last effort, he was surprised to see Zacharie, red and gesticulating, come out of the mine shouting: [432]