8
The Ordeal in the Mill
Had de Quesnoy fallen from that height on to a harder substance his neck must have been broken, but the powder-fine flour was not even packed tightly, as would have been the case had it been shovelled from one place to another; it was just as it had floated down from the grinders so almost as aerated as if it had been a vast cushion of feathers.
Head first, he plunged into it and seconds later was immersed up to the hips, with even his outstretched arms buried a foot or more deep; yet the impact had been sufficient to drive the breath out of his body.
Instinctively, he gasped for air. As his mouth opened the flour fell into it and more flour trickled down, filling his nostrils. He knew then that he was on the very brink of death. Unless he could free his head in the next few minutes he would suffocate. Already, with little air left in his lungs, there was a terrible constriction in his chest. It felt as though iron bands had been passed round it and were swiftly being screwed tighter.
Summoning up his will-power he forced himself to remain still for a moment, then with his remaining breath he blew down his nostrils. As it cleared them he made a desperate effort with his hands and forearms to force himself upward. It was only partially successful, but it brought him temporary relief. The pressure he had exerted had forced the flour beneath him into a solid mass and so created what amounted to an air bubble about his head and shoulders. He was able to draw in a breath of air before more flour fell in from above and filled the gap.
Now, although still half buried, to his unutterable relief it flashed upon him that there was a way in which he could save himself.
The whole bed of flour was so highly aerated that he only had to keep pressing it down in front of his face to get more air. Yet he was still not out of the wood. The mouthful of flour that he had gulped in now threatened to choke him. In vain he tried to spit it out. It had formed into a paste cloying all round his teeth and such of it as he had tried to swallow had stuck in his gullet.
In great pain and with failing strength, but no lessening of endeavour, he continued his fight for life. Several more seemingly endless minutes passed while he writhed and struggled in the darkness. At last, his resolution was rewarded. Somehow he had freed his head and shoulders and pulled himself out of the morass of flour. Now, lying spreadeagled on his back, he gradually recovered from his exertions.
A good twenty minutes passed before he made any attempt to explore his surroundings, then he sat up and looked about him. Already it had dawned on him that although when Pedro had shone his torch downward the flour chamber had appeared to be a pit of utter blackness, it was not so in fact. It was very faintly lit by starlight percolating through two dirt-encrusted windows set high up in opposite walls.
The chamber itself was about twenty feet square and, judging by the glimpse that de Quesnoy had caught of it from outside, he believed it to be about forty feet high. As the grinding machinery must occupy the upper ten feet, and he was lying some twenty feet below it, it could be assumed that the bed of flour was about ten feet deep. If that were so, the doors that Pedro had mentioned, by which the flour was shovelled out as required into sacks, must be well below the surface; so even if he could find them, it would be impossible to force them open.
Assuming that the flour was ten feet deep, the windows were a good bit more than half-way up the walls so could not be reached, and the walls, being sheer, and without protrusions of any kind, were completely unscaleable. However, it occurred to him that if he could make a solid mound of flour under one of the windows, he might be able to jump up to it.
Getting to his feet he ploughed his way over towards the nearest. With each step he took his foot sank knee-deep into the flour, as though it was the lightest form of snow, and at every movement he made, a big puff of it rose up filling the air with a little cloud of particles. Standing beneath the window he found that its sill was a good seven feet above the level of the flour and, as his feet were sunk nearly a foot deep in the flour, when he stretched his hands up as far as they would go his finger-tips were still some eighteen inches short of the sill.
Desperately tired and still racked by a blinding headache as he was, he began a laborious attempt to erect a solid platform below the window. Had he had a spade he might have accomplished the job by an hour's steady work, but he had no instrument of any kind, so was reduced to using his hands and feet. Going down on his knees he swept armfuls of flour forward, stood up to trample them flat, then repeated the process.
It proved a labour of Hercules. All the time he was moving the flour it billowed up in clouds about him, powdering his hair and eyebrows white, and stifling and blinding him so that every few minutes he was compelled to cease until the clouds had settled and he could get back his breath. For over two hours he stuck to this terrible task. By the end of that time he had succeeded in raising a short ramp a little over a foot, but it needed another six or eight inches for him to get a firm grasp on the window sill.
By then he was utterly exhausted and knew that even though his life depended on it he could do no more. His only hope now was that in the morning a workman to whom he could shout for help would come up on to the catwalk to do something to the machinery, or that by throwing something through the window he might attract attention to himself. Slumping down on the soft flour he fell into a deep sleep.
When he awoke he knew from the brighter light that filled the chamber that it was morning. The horrors of the past night flooded back into his mind, and it was only then he realized that someone was shouting at him. Staring up from where he lay he saw the figure of a man leaning over the rail of the catwalk. The mass of machinery filling most of the space in the top of the chamber made it semi-dark up there. Yet, even as a surge of hope that he was about to be rescued ran through him, that hope was killed. He could now make out the form of the man more clearly, and it was the giant Pedro.
'So you're still alive,' Pedro shouted down to him. 'Well, you won't be for long.'
Staggering to his feet, de Quesnoy shouted back. 'Get me out! I'll pay you anything you ask. I'm rich. The others needn't know. For God's sake get me out. What does it matter to you if I live or die? Don't throw away this chance never to have to work again. Save me and I'll hand over to you a fortune.'
But Pedro only gave a bellow of laughter, then walked back along the catwalk. Like the knell of doom for de Quesnoy, the door slammed behind him.
At the threat that he would not now remain alive for long, the Count recalled what had been said the night before about his being dead from suffocation within ten minutes, but that, should he not be, when they started to grind that would finish him. With renewed fears he stared upward. A moment later there came the sound of turning wheels and clanking machinery. The grinders had been set in motion.
From them a white mist floated down. It was composed of millions of tiny particles finer than any snow. Hastily de Quesnoy ploughed his way to the nearest corner where, not being directly under the grinder, the mist was slightly less dense. Pulling out his handkerchief, he tied it over his mouth and nose then, tearing off his jacket, he put that over his head and drew its skirts close about his shoulders. But even with such protection he knew that a soft-footed death was about to steal relentlessly upon him.
Unlike a sand-storm there was no rushing wind and sharp whipping of grains against everything they encountered. The flour descended in an even, semi-transparent cascade and in utter silence. But like sand raised by a desert whirlwind the particles penetrated every nook and cranny. Within a quarter of an hour at the most the handkerchief across the lower part of his face would become so thickly coated that it would no longer serve as a filter. Then, every breath he was forced to draw would be laden with those death-dealing particles. Another quarter of an hour of mounting agony and his lungs would cease to function. At last complete despair seized him.