Dr. Dumanys Wife | Page 6

falling fast to left and to right, and I hastened to gain
the steps which led to the little watch-house. Then I bethought me of
the boy. I found him still insensible, but otherwise unharmed, and I

took him up, covering him with a furred coat. I ran up the steps with
him, so fast that not a thought of my asthma and heart disease
slackened my speed.
There was nobody in the house but a woman milking a goat. In one
corner of the room stood a bed, in the middle was a table, and on one of
the walls hung a burning coal-oil lamp.
As I opened the door the woman looked up, and said in a dull piteous
moaning--
"It is none of Jörge's fault. Jörge had shown the red light in good season,
and yesterday he specially warned the gentlemen, and told them that a
ridge of the Gnippe was crumbling, and would soon break down; but
they did not listen to him, and now that the accident has come, they will
surely visit their own carelessness upon him. It is always the poor
dependent that is made to suffer for the fault of his superiors. But I will
not stand it; and if Jörge is discharged and loses his bread, then--"
"All right, madam!" I said, "I saw the red light in time, and I shall
testify for Jörge in case of need. Only keep quiet now, and come here.
You must try to restore this child. He has fainted. Give him water or
something; you will know best what to do."
In recalling these words to my memory and writing them down, I am
not quite certain that I really spoke them; I am not certain of a single
word or action of mine on that fearful night. But I think that I said the
words I am relating, although I was so confused that it is possible I did
not utter a word. I had come out of the house again, and saw a man
running up and down on the narrow rocky plateau, like one crazy. It
was Jörge the watchman; he was looking for the signal-post, and could
not find it.
"Here it is, look!" I said, turning his face toward the high pole right in
front of him. He gazed up wistfully, and then all at once he blubbered
out--
"See! See, the red light! I gave the warning. They cannot blame me;

they dare not punish me for it. It is not my fault!"
Of course, he thought of nothing but himself, and the misfortune of the
others touched him only in so far as he was concerned.
"Don't blubber now!" I said. "There will be time enough to think of
ourselves. Now let us learn what has happened to the others. The whole
train has been swept down into the abyss below. What has become of
the people in it?"
"God Almighty have mercy on their souls!"
"Yet perhaps we could save some of them. Come along!"
"I can't go. I dare not leave my post, else they will turn against me."
"Well then, I shall go alone," said I, and hastened down the steps.
I heard no screams, no cries, not a sound of human voices. The poor
victims of the catastrophe were exhausted or frightened out of their wits,
and gave no utterance to the pain they felt. Only the never-ceasing
clatter of the falling stones was heard, nothing else. Awful is the voice
of the elements, and dreadful their revenge on their human antagonists!
The thundering heavens, the roaring sea, are awful to behold and to
listen to; but most fearful of all is the voice of the earth, when,
quivering in wrath, she opens her fiery mouth or hurls her rocky
missiles at pigmy men.
From the wrecked train a great many travellers had jumped like myself;
but not all with the same happy result. They had mostly reached the
ground more or less bruised, but at the moment of escape from the
clutch of death we do not much feel our hurts. These unhappy victims,
frightened as they were, had managed to creep and hide behind the
untouched portion of the bulwark, and happy to have escaped from
immediate death, sheltered from the tremendous cataract of stones, they
remained quiet, trembling, awaiting the end of the catastrophe and the
ultimate rescue. But what had meanwhile become of those who had
stayed in the falling carriages?

There came a terrible answer to that question, and out of the old horror
arose a new and still more terrible spectre. A demon with a cloudy head,
rising from the darkness below, and with a swift and fearful growth,
mounting up to the sky--a demon with a thousand glistening, sparkling