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“If you can help ever so little, it will come!” he gasped.

Then in my despair, though the anguish of it nearly killed me, I set my palms upon the ground, and, contracting myself like a snake that is held with a forked stick, thrust upwards with my back, till the point of the stone was raised to the height of eight or ten inches from the ground.

For a moment, and one only, it hung there; next instant the lever slipped, and down it came again. But I had taken my chance, for, clinging to the floor with my fingers, so soon as my back was free, with a quick movement I dragged myself a foot or more forward. Then the point of rock that had been lifted from my spine fell again, but this time it struck the ground between my thighs.

Now he seized me by the arms and tore me free, though I left one of my long boots beneath the stone. I strove to rise, but could not because of the hurt to my back.

“You must carry me, señor,” I said.

He glanced at the mass that trembled above us; then, giving me the candle, he lifted me from the ground like an infant and staggered forward down the tunnel. Perhaps we had gone some seven or eight paces, not more, when there was a dreadful crash behind us. The roof had fallen in, and the spot which we occupied some thirty seconds before was now piled high with rocks.