[The Wings of the Morning by Louis Tracy]@TWC D-Link bookThe Wings of the Morning CHAPTER IX 11/37
The accumulation of liberated carbonic acid gas in the workings killed them in scores.
They probably fought this unseen demon with the tenacity of their race, until the place became accursed and banned of all living things.
Yet had they dug a little ditch, and permitted the invisible terror to flow quietly downwards until its potency was dissipated by sea and air, they might have mined the whole cliff with impunity. The unfortunate unknown, J.S .-- he of the whitened bones--might have done this thing too.
But he only possessed the half-knowledge of the working miner, and whilst shunning the plague-stricken quarry, adopted the more laborious method of making an adit to strike the deposit.
He succeeded, to perish miserably in the hour when he saw himself a millionaire. Was this a portent of the fate about to overtake the latest comers? Jenks, of course, stood up.
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