His Hearts Queen | Page 3

strong, sinewy hands the straps which hung from the supports above his head.
"Quick now!" he said to his almost paralyzed companion; "stand up, put your arms about my neck, and cling to me for your life."
She looked helplessly up into his face; it seemed as if she had not the power to move--to obey him.
With a despairing glance from the window and a groan of anguish, he released his hold upon the straps, seized her hands again, and locked them behind his neck.
"Cling! Cling!" he cried, in a voice of agony.
The tone aroused her; strength came to her, and she clasped him close--close as a person drowning might have done.
He straightened himself thus, lifting her several inches from the floor of the car, seized again the straps above, and swung himself also clear, hoping thus to evade somewhat the terrible force of the shock which he knew was so near.
He was not a second too soon; the crash came, and with it one frightful volume of agonizing shrieks and groans; then all was still.
The car had been dashed into thousands of pieces, burying beneath the debris twenty human beings.
A group of horrified spectators had gathered in the street at the base of the plane when it was rumored that the car had lost its grip upon the cable, and had watched, with quaking hearts and bated breath, the awful descent.
When all was over, kind and reverent hands began the sad work of exhuming the unfortunate victims of the accident.
It was thought at first that all were dead--that not one had escaped; that every soul had been hurled, with scarcely a moment's warning, into eternity.
The brave young carpenter was found lying beneath two mangled bodies, with the beautiful girl whom he had tried to save clasped close in one of his arms; the other lay crushed beneath him.
"Brother and sister," some one had said, as, bending over them, he had tried to disengage the lovely girl from his embrace.
He had only been stunned, however, by the shock, when the car struck, and he now opened his great brown eyes, drawing in a deep, deep breath, as if thus taking hold anew of the life that had so nearly been dashed out of him.
This was followed by a groan of pain, and he became conscious that he had not escaped altogether unscathed.
"Is she safe?" he gasped, his first thought, in spite of his own sufferings, being for the girl for whom he had braved so much, while he tried to look into the white, still face hidden upon his breast.
They tried to lift her from him, but her little hands were so tightly locked at the back of his neck that it was no easy task to unclasp them.
"She is dead," a voice said, when at last she was removed, and some one tried to ascertain if her heart was still beating; "the shock has killed her."
"No, no!" sobbed the now completely unnerved young carpenter; "do not tell me that she is--dead."
"Who are you, my poor fellow? Where do you live? Shall we take you to the hospital, or do you want to go home?" they asked him.
"Oh, no, not to the hospital--home to my mother," the young man returned, with difficulty, for his sufferings seemed to increase as he came to himself more fully.
"No. ---- Hughes street," the poor fellow gasped, and then fainted dead away.
They had not thought to inquire if the young girl was his sister, but they took it for granted that she was, so they laid them side by side and bore them away to Hughes street.
They found, upon inquiry, that the house referred to was occupied by a Mrs. Richardson.
The woman was away when the sad cortege arrived at her home, but a latch-key was found in the pocket of the young man, by which an entrance was effected, and they deposited him upon a bed in a small room leading from the sitting-room, while the young girl was laid upon a lounge in the neat and cozy parlor. Then they hastened away to procure a physician to examine the injuries of the two sufferers.
Mrs. Richardson returned, just about the time that the surgeon arrived, to find that her only son had been one of the victims of the horrible tragedy, a rumor of which had reached her while she was out, and that a strange but lovely girl had also been brought, through mistake, to her home.
The surgeon turned his attention at once to this beautiful stranger, who, to all appearance, seemed beyond all human aid; but during his examination his face suddenly lighted.
"She is not dead," he said; "the shock has only caused suspension of animation. Her heart beats, her pulse is faint, but regular, and I cannot find a bruise or a scratch