Dr. Dumanys Wife | Page 8

doubled up
Turk-fashion, sits a young painter with Mephisto beard and grey eyes.
His sketch-book is open, and he is making a vivid sketch of the
sensational scene. The illustrated papers are grateful customers, and
will rejoice at receiving the sketch.
But this young draughtsman is not the only sensible person in the place.
There is another, a long-legged Englishman, standing with watch in
hand, reckoning up the time lost by the accident, and eyeing the scene
complacently.
Some noisy dispute attracts my attention, and, turning, I behold a man,
trying with all his might to overcome a woman, who attacks him with
teeth and nails, biting his hands and tearing at his flesh, as he drags her
close to him. At last he succeeds in joining both of her hands behind
her back, she foaming, writhing, and cursing. I ask indignantly, "What
do you want with the woman? Let her alone!"
"Oh, sir!" he said, showing me a sorrowful and tear-stained face, "for
Heaven's sake, help me! I cannot bear with her any more. She wants to
leap down and kill herself. Pray help me to tie her hands, and carry her
off from here!"
By his speech I knew him for a Pole, and the woman's exclamations
were also uttered in the Polish language. She was his wife; her children
were there in that infernal pile, and she wanted to die with them.
"Quick! quick!" gasped the man. "Take my necktie and fasten her
hands behind her." I obeyed; and as I wound the silken strip tight
around the unhappy woman's wrist, her despairing gaze fixed itself in
deadly hate upon my face, and her foaming lips cursed me for keeping

her away from her children. As her husband carried her away, her
curses pierced the air; and although I could not understand the words, I
understood that she spoke of the "Czrny Bog," or, as the Russians say,
"Cserny Boh," the "Black God" of the Slavs--Death.
By this time the horrible tower was burning brightly, and the night was
all aglow with the glaring light, and still those terrible shrieks from
human voices resounded to and fro.
The young artist had a picturesque scene for his pencil, and kept
making sketch after sketch. The burning wreck, the flying cinders, the
red mist around the black pine woods on the rocky wall of the
mountain, and that small span of star-lit heaven above; all those
frightened, maddened, running, crouching, creeping men and women
around, with the chanting Jew, in his long silken caftan and dangling
locks, in the midst of them, made a picture of terrible sublimity.
But still the god of destruction was unsatisfied, and his fiery maw
opened for more victims. The unhappy young husband had succeeded
in tearing up his clothes and knotting the strips together. A
compassionate woman had given him a shawl, which he fastened to the
bushes. On this he descended into that mouth of hell. The perilous
attempt succeeded so far that, with one mad leap, he landed on the top
of the uppermost car with its pile of stones, and then, with cat-like
dexterity and desperate daring, he scrambled downward to the third
carriage. Quickly he reached the spot, and the poor little gloved hands
of his darling were thrown in ecstasy around his neck. Someone had
drawn up the cord on which he had let himself down, fastened a stout
iron rod to it, and suspended it carefully. Happily it reached him, and
with its aid he made a good-sized breach, widening the opening of the
window; he worked with desperate strength, and we gazed breathlessly
on. Now we saw him drop the rod again. The tender arms of his bride
were around his neck, a fair head was thrust out, the whole form was
emerging, when with a tremendous crash, and a hissing, spluttering,
crackling noise, the whole fabric shook and trembled, and husband and
wife were united in death.
The great boiler had burst; the explosion had changed the scene again,

and the young painter might draw still another sketch.

III.
THE ENGLISHMAN.
That long-legged son of Albion whom I had previously observed,
strolled up to my side and asked--
"Do you understand German, sir?"
"Yes, sir, I do."
"Then call for that shepherd. I want him."
I obeyed, and the shepherd, who had complacently eyed the scene as
something that was of no consequence to him, came slowly and
wonderingly up.
He was in no hurry, and my coaxing "Dear friend" and "Good friend"
did not impress him at all; but when the Englishman showed him a
handful of gold coins he came on quickly enough.
"Tell him," said the Englishman, "to run to the next railway station,
give notice of the accident, and return with a