"THE WEB."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8555, 14 October 1907, Page 2

"THE WEB."

CHAPTER Vlll.—Continued

Before the onu terrified onlooker ] could rouse himself from the trance of horror into which he had been plunged by the horrible catastrophe. , fire broke out from the gigantic, (lis- _ ordered piie of carriages, and then, j too, there broke upon his ear, hither- f to deafened by the tremendous roar ] of the train as it left the metals and plunged into disaster, another sound, —theory of rr. en and won en in the agonies of pain and fear. The sound brought him to himself. He rushed to the nearest coach, crying out like a madman. People from the village, having heard the awful sound that had gone echoing and re-echoing among the hills, began to appear on the scene. The station-master in his shirt-sleeves came headlong from his house. In three minutes a party of some forty men and women were struggling to extricate the passengers. And. they were none too soon, for already the fire was blazing up from every coach. On the permanent way among the debris of the two coaches which Imd been telescoped could be seen the mangled bodies of three persons—a presage of the horrors which awaited the workers within the heart of the awful bonfire which every minute burnt with more fury. One of the coaches had been forced by the collision almost completely on to the top of another one which itself had kept the rails, and from both these fire and smoke were pouring in eve>" increasing volumes. From this top carriage a man was suddenly seen to force his way through the glass and drop upon the platform. It was Strangways. Stunned by the first impact, he had been woken to consciousness by the flames which had burst up ail round him, and without realizirg what he was doing, he had hurled himself through the window, j Once on the platform, all thoughts of I his own possible injuries, a'l t l ie hor- ! ror and wonder of the catastrophe left his mind. He- had only one thought—to find Lady Violet. He knew she was in the next carriage—in the next carriage that was lying like a drunken thing half-tiited against the stonework of the platform and burring furiously. He took in immediately the whole situation. His mind concetrated by the thought of Lady Violet's danger located at once the compartment in which she had been. With a half-muttered curse he pushed aside the people who rushed up to assist him, thinking he must be in need of aid, and, plunged between the carriages. He had seen that it was useless ; to attempt to force an entrance from the station side, for the position in which the carriage had fallen prevented the door from being opened. Regardless of the smoke and flames whicii burst out everywhere, he clambered up on to the footboard outside the carriage in which Lady Violet and her party had travelled. The brass handle was burning hot as he turned it, but thank God the door opened. As i; turned on its hinges he was back with the volume xif smoke that burst out, but the draught cleared the air in a few seconds, and in the hazy light he was able ito see thr.'e bodies lying huddled up together on the floor. The heat was su locating, but with the acrid smoke in his nostrils and the scorching fianes in his eyes he struggled in. Alrealy three men had followed to give assistance. He lifted the first body, that of the Duchess, and staggered with he' 1 , heavy weight as she was, to the dx>r. The second form he raised in his arms was that of Miss Elders. In an agony of haste he pasted her into the arms of the men on the line. Then he stooped to pick up the girl whom he loved. As he touched her he felt sure she was dead—she hung so limp and lifeless in his arms. At that moment he would have stayed willingly to meet death by her side in that furnace; but he staggered to the door none the less, and, refusing the assistance of anybody, dropped on to the permanent way, and, then, crossing the metals with his burden placed her on the stone platform, where already lay the forms of the Duchess and Miss Elders. One of the men had gone for a doctor, or rather the only doctor, for none others had yet had time to arrive. Strangways was kneeling by Lady Violet's side when he arrived, holding her hand while the tears streamed down his face. All hope had .gone from his life. She was dead. And he had never even spoken to her. She had gone out of his life believing him to be a murderer, believing him to be everything that was vile and bad. She would never knpw that he was guiltless. He would never be able to give her proof conclusive of his innocence. He had no more purpose in life. At that moment he did not care whether his faLher's murderer was discovered or not. She. would never be able to know anything about him. In a flash of gloomy prevision he saw before him years of aimU sness, years of living without a piirpn.-', of desiring without hope. He her hand to his lips and felt his hot tears foil upon her white wrist. He did not notice that the doctor was kneeling at the other side rapidly making an examination with the calmness and detachment of his profession. Suddenly he rose and touched Strangways on the shoulder. "Come, my dear fallow," he said, "pull yourself together." , Strangways turned upon him angrily. "Go away, curse you!" he almost screamed. "Leave me with the dead." Something like a grim smile lit up the doctor's face. "There are many dead there," and he pointed to the gruesome wreckage of the train—"but not her©. You*

By PAUL. UEQUHART.

[Published By Special Arrangement.] [All Bights Reserved.]

are only delaying the lady's recovery by—" Strangways suddenly sprang to his feet. "Is there hope?" he said. "Hope," said the doctor testily. "Why these three ladies are only in a faint. And from what I can see nothing worse has overtaken them than a bad shaking and a few bruises." Just then a man arrived with a bucket of water and began to sprinkle the faces of the three women. In about a minute the Duchess struggled back to consciousness, sat up, gazed wildly round, and catching sight of her daughter's body relapsed with a shriek into another dead faint. But by the time Lady Violet and Miss Elders recovered she had come to herself again, and with the assistance of one of the men, managed to stagger to the wooden shelter that did duty as a waiting-room. When Strangways saw that Lady Violet was quite safe; and had asked her if she felt better, all traces of his past emotion vanished. He ~wa& ashamed of himself. \ He remembered that they were socially total strangers, and he endeavoured to hide the confusion that possessed | him by a sudden assumption of cold reserve. - The doctor, who had been standing by all the while, could not help marvelling at his changed attitude. Not a moment before this man had been sobbing at the girl's side like a lover heartbroken at the death of his sweetheart; now he was speaking and ;acting as if they were total strangers. But he was too busy to allow his mind to trouble itself with such riddles. There were many poor tortured wretches in the train who needed his ministrations. As he turned away Strangways accompanied him and followed him once more across the line. "You have -got to '.hank that gentleman, miss," said a burly York- | shireman to Lady Violet, "for saving you from being burnt to death." "Which gentleman?" said Lady Violet eagerly. "Yon tall one," retorted the other, pointing a finger at Strangways' rei treating form. "Doesn't tha know ' him? Why he took on so I thought [ may be he'd been keepin' coompany '. with you." ; A little smile came to Lady j Violet's lips. "I have never met him before," | she said simply. "What did he do? I should like to thanK him." "What did he do?" retorted the man, "why, he went into yon carriage when it were flaming nigh as bad as 1 it is now and fetched you all out as 1 cool as anything. It wer; fair , plooky." ; Meanwhile, Strangways, with his ' head in a whirl, had reached the ' other platform. The sicrht which it 1 presented was terrible. Some sheets ', had been procured from a neighbouring house to cover over the Things | which had once been living men . and women but were now mangled ' and charred masses of flesh. None \ the less some shapeless horrors still !' lay staring grotesquely at the evenj ' ing sky. One girl about nineteen years of age lay with her head half 3 • severed from her body near the empty milk can against which the porter \ not half an hour before had been \ dreamily meditating on the possible ' nature of his supper. Her face ' was daubsd .with sph.sh.3s of blood [ which had dried, and now made her look with her lifeless eyes and her " distorted, half-open lips like some | clown whose face had been painted I for the circus rine. Strangways s shuddered as he passed it. This I horrible distortion made him feel . too hardly that the most beautiful human creature is but a thing of ' flesh and blood capable of being ' changed in one moment to a mangled ' mass of horror. l As he followed in the doctor's footsteps he suddenly remembered the ' American and his girl frijnd. They [ were in the saloon at the time of the " accident, and partly with a desire to 1 hear what had become of them, bat j more with a desira to get away from the Thing near the milk-can, " he hurried down towards the saloon. ' It was turned completely over on , one side, and the part of it nearest .' the engine was burning furiously. \ As he came up he saw three men ' break the glass of the window, j "There's a man and woman in , there f" shouted Strangways, running \ nip. ■ Hardly were the words out of his mouih when he saw two of the men .stoop down and drag out a body com- ' pletely wrapped in a rug with its head enclosed in a man's coat, fie \ helped to lift it on the platform. As he did so he heard a voice behind , him. ' ''Here, you lay her gently-there. She'd been enough knocked about by these durned trains already," and , turning round, he saw Mr Theodore Beeton in his shirt sleeves, with his • waistcoat half burnt away and his " face showing white beneath "the . grime and smoke which stained his cheeks, (To be Continued).