The earth trembled like jelly under Ralph's feet as he hacked at the traces that held the other three mules and the moment they were free of the trapped cart he drove them ahead of him along the causeway, yelling them into a gallop. The yellow mud shook and tilted as the cracks yawned open, and the entire causeway began to sag.
'Run, you bloody fool,' Ralph panted at the man he had been fighting, as he stood in the rain and looked about him, the tattered oilskins dangling about his legs, his expression bewildered.
'Come on, run,' and Ralph grabbed his arm and dragged him after the galloping mule team.
one after another the gantries that lined the roadway, some of them with the huge buckets still hanging from the sheaves, began to topple over into the pit, the timber crackling and twisting, the ropes tangling and snapping like strands of cotton.
Ahead of Ralph the three yoked mules reached firm ground and galloped away, whisking their tails and kicking out skittishly at relief from their burden.
The causeway tilted and sagged, so that suddenly Ralph seemed to be running up a steep hill. The driver beside him missed his footing and went down on his knees, and then as he started to slide backwards he threw himself face down and spread his arm as though to hug the earth.
'Get up.' Ralph checked his own run, and stood over him.
Behind them the earth growled like a voracious animal, moving gravel grinding upon itself; and there were still fourteen carts out on the collapsing causeway.
Half a dozen of the drivers had abandoned their teams and were running back along the trembling, sagging roadway, but they had left it too late. They stopped in a little group. Some of them fell flat and clung to the earth. One turned and leapt boldly from the edge into the gaping pit.
He plugged into the mud, and three black workers seized him and dragged him to safety, a broken leg twisting and slithering over the mud behind him.
One of the laden carts, with four mules in the traces, toppled over and, as it hit the bottom of the diggings, the weight of gravel shattered it to ragged splinters of raw white wood, and a shaggy black mule impaled on the disselboom screamed with shockingly human agony and kicked wildly. tearing out its own entrails from the gaping wound in its flank.
Ralph stooped and dragged the driver to his feet, pulling him up the steepening incline, but the man was semi- paralysed by terror and hampered by the flapping tails of his heavy oilskins.
The centre of the roadway cracked through abruptly and a hundred feet of it collapsed sideways with a swift rumbling rush, hurling carts and animals into the pit as though from some gigantic catapult.
Ralph glanced once over his shoulder at the terrifying carnage and saw that the whole roadway was going starting from that centre point and running swiftly towards him, a breaking wave of soft yellow earth seeming to be of some thick and viscid fluid, breaking with that grinding whisper.
'Come on,' Ralph grunted at the man on his arm, and suddenly the earth beneath their feet lunged the other way, throwing them forward towards the rim of the pit and safety.
They went forward with a rush, the driver clutching at Ralph's shoulder for support. A dozen paces to go to firm ground, and Ralph did not look back again. The hideous sounds from the pit were unnerving, and he sensed that another glimpse of that onrushing wave of collapsing earth might paralyse his own legs.
'Come on,' he gasped. 'We'll make it, almost there.
Come on!' And as he said it the earth opened in front of their feet as though from a giant's axe stroke. It opened with a smacking sound, as of kissing lips, and the mouth of it was sheer, eighty feet deep and three feet across, but in the brief seconds that they tottered on the edge it gaped wider, six feet, eight feet, and the causeway tilted sideways, the final convulsion.
Jump!' said Ralph. 'Jump for it, man.' And he shoved the driver at it, forcing him at that frightful crack that seemed to split the earth to its very core.
The man stumbled off balance, his arms waving wildly for control, and then he made a clumsy scrambling leap out over the drop. The torn oilskins tangled with his limbs and fluttered about his head. He hit the far lip of the crack with his chest, his legs hanging into the drop and kicking hopelessly, and clawed at the muddy lip. But there was no purchase and inexorably he began to slide backwards.
Ralph knew there was no chance of making a run-up to the jump. He had to take it from a standstill, and it was gaping wider with every second, ten feet or more now, and the quivering bank of collapsing earth was an unstable platform.
He sank on one knee, steadied himself with a clenched fist against the earth, and then straightened his legs and body in a sudden burst of energy like a released coilspring, jumping high because the causeway had already sagged below the level of the rim.
The power of that leap surprised even Ralph; he cleared the driver's wriggling body and landed deep, on firm and rock-steady ground, stumbled with his own forward impetus and then ran on half a dozen paces.
Behind him the driver wailed and slid back a few inches, and around his spread fingers opened a mesh of smaller cracks, running parallel to the gaping sheer line.
Ralph spun and ran back. He threw himself flat and reached for the driver's wrist. It was greasy with mud, slippery as a freshly netted trout, and he knew he could not hold him for long.
Over the driver's head Ralph stared down into the diggings. He watched the final collapse of the causeway, a massive rush of earth, some of it liquid mud, mixed with huge chunks of compacted gravel that ground together like the jaws of some mindless monster, crushing and smothering men and animals between them.
The entire number 6 Roadway was gone, and across the floor of the pit, deep dark cracks spread out like a grotesque spider's web.
In the bottom of the diggings the figures of men seemed frail and insectlike, their cries feeble and without consequence, their pathetic scurrying without purpose.
Ralph suddenly recognized his father. He alone was standing firm, his head thrown back, and even across that dizzy space Ralph could feel the strength of his gaze.
